What is Travis Kelce’s IQ?
Three Super Bowl wins, a degree finished in 2022 and a stint hosting a quiz show, yet the only test number on his record is a Wonderlic 22 reported in 2013.
No published IQ test result exists for Travis Kelce, so any Travis Kelce IQ score is an estimate: the only test number on record is a reported Wonderlic of 22 out of 50 from the 2013 draft process, the same 22 that position lists give tight ends. This site’s estimated IQ for Kelce is about 89–104; the 104 that the usual rule-of-thumb conversion gives for that 22 marks the top of the band, not its middle.
Travis Kelce’s estimated IQ
- A reported Wonderlic score of 22 out of 50 from the 2013 draft process, listed by Bob McGinn in his October 28, 2023 Go Long TD retrospective (Wikipedia cites his April 18, 2013 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel column) and matching the 22 that a 1984 list of NFL position averages gives tight ends.
- The conventional Wonderlic-to-IQ rule of thumb (a raw 20 read as IQ 100, about two IQ points per raw point) turns a 22 into 104, per ACIS’s conversion chart; this site treats that figure as a ceiling, as it does for Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers.
- A Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Cincinnati, completed in 2022 after he played there from 2008 to 2012 (first-team All-Big East in 2012); no GPA or admissions-test score was found.
- A 2009 study of 762 NFL players found Wonderlic scores unrelated to later NFL performance, so his three Super Bowl wins, 11 Pro Bowls and tight-end records are documented but not used to lift the band.
The Wonderlic is a 12-minute, 50-question hiring screen, not an IQ test, and Kelce’s 22 is a reported figure, not an official release; one Wonderlic-focused site says his score is not publicly known. The 104 conversion is a rule of thumb the test’s current publisher does not publish (per ACIS), and even a .93 correlation with Wechsler full-scale IQ, reported in a 1981 study, leaves real error for one person, so the band runs from 15 points below that figure up to it.
- Born
- October 5, 1989, Westlake, Ohio; raised in Cleveland Heights, Ohio
- Education
- Cleveland Heights High School; University of Cincinnati, 2008–2012 (Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies, completed 2022)
- Field
- American football (tight end): Kansas City Chiefs, 2013–present
- Draft
- 2013 NFL Draft, third round, 63rd overall (Kansas City Chiefs)
- Honors
- Three-time Super Bowl champion (LIV, LVII, LVIII); 11 Pro Bowls; four first-team All-Pro selections; seven straight 1,000-yard seasons, an NFL record for tight ends
- Tests on record
- Wonderlic 22 of 50 (reported by journalist Bob McGinn from the 2013 draft process; not an official release); no IQ test
- Status (September 2026)
- Age 36; on the Chiefs’ active roster in his 14th season; second among NFL tight ends in career receiving yards
- Circulating IQ figure
- 104 (arithmetic on the Wonderlic 22, not a test result)
What an IQ of 89–104 actually means
Set the claim aside for a moment. If someone genuinely scored in this range, here is what that would represent.
Average is 100 by construction, and about two-thirds of people fall between 85 and 115. Take the test to place your own score on this scale.
| Score range | Classification | Share of people | What it indicates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 85 – 114 | Average | ~68% | The range most people fall into. |
| 115 – 129 | Above average | ~13.6% | Roughly one person in seven. |
| 130 – 144 | Gifted | ~2% | The threshold most high-IQ societies use. |
| Above 144 | Highly gifted | ~0.1% | Figures above this range are extrapolated from the curve rather than measured. |
Percentages are approximate and describe a normal distribution. The same number means different things on tests with different standard deviations.
Thirty questions gives you a measured position on this exact scale — your score, your percentile and the ability breakdown behind it.
Find out in 30 minutes →Who Travis Kelce is
Travis Michael Kelce was born on October 5, 1989, in Westlake, Ohio, and grew up in Cleveland Heights, where he attended Cleveland Heights High School as a quarterback: as a senior in 2007 he totaled 2,539 yards of offense and drew all-league honors. He took a scholarship from the University of Cincinnati, joining his older brother Jason, then a Bearcats offensive lineman.
The University of Cincinnati lists him as attending from 2008 to 2012 and says he began his football career as a quarterback. After a redshirt year in 2008 he played tight end and, in the wildcat formation, quarterback in 2009. In 2012, a fifth-year senior with 13 starts, he led the Bearcats with 45 receptions for 722 yards and eight touchdowns, earned first-team all-conference honors in the Big East and, in March 2013, was named the College Football Performance Awards Tight End of the Year. He finished his remaining credit hours in 2022 for a Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies from the College of Arts and Sciences, and on April 11, 2024, university president Neville Pinto handed him and Jason their diplomas during a New Heights live event at Fifth Third Arena, a late finish with a parallel in Shaquille O’Neal, who earned his LSU bachelor’s degree in 2000 after leaving for the NBA and later added an MBA and an Ed.D.
The Kansas City Chiefs drafted Kelce in the third round of the 2013 NFL Draft, 63rd overall and the opening pick of the round, and he has played for them ever since. From 2016 through 2022 he topped 1,000 receiving yards seven seasons in a row, an NFL record for a tight end, and in 2020 he set the tight-end single-season record with 1,416 yards, passing George Kittle’s 1,377 from 2018. Kansas City won Super Bowl LIV (February 2, 2020; 31–20 over San Francisco), Super Bowl LVII (February 12, 2023; 38–35 over Philadelphia, in the first Super Bowl with brothers on opposing teams, Jason Kelce playing for the Eagles) and Super Bowl LVIII (February 11, 2024; 25–22 in overtime over San Francisco) with Kelce in the lineup, and lost Super Bowls LV and LIX. He has made 11 Pro Bowls (every season from 2015 through 2025), four first-team All-Pro teams (2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022) and three second-team selections (2017, 2019 and 2021), and in the January 2024 AFC Championship Game he passed Jerry Rice for the most postseason receptions in NFL history, a total that stood at 178 after the 2024 playoffs.
Away from the field, Kelce co-hosts the weekly New Heights podcast with Jason, which launched September 8, 2022, and hosted the 20-episode Prime Video quiz series Are You Smarter than a Celebrity?, which premiered October 16, 2024. As of September 2026 he is 36 and on the Chiefs’ active roster in his 14th season: through Week 3 he has 14 receptions for 231 yards and two touchdowns, and in the season opener against Denver he moved into second place among NFL tight ends in career receiving yards, ahead of Jason Witten and behind Tony Gonzalez’s 15,127; ESPN lists his career total at 13,233 through Week 3.
By Elora Mercer, Celebrity Research WriterFigures checked by Leon Falkner, Data & Research AnalystReviewed by Aarav Vardhan, Editor-in-Chief · Last reviewed August 2026
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Travis Kelce: the documented record
The estimate above rests on this record. Every entry here is a matter of public fact, which is more than can be said for the number itself.
- 1989Born October 5 in Westlake, Ohio; grows up in Cleveland Heights.
- 2007–2008Senior year as quarterback at Cleveland Heights High School (2,539 yards of total offense); enrolls at the University of Cincinnati and redshirts.
- 2012Leads Cincinnati with 45 receptions for 722 yards and eight touchdowns; first-team all-conference in the Big East; named College Football Performance Awards Tight End of the Year in March 2013.
- 2013Wonderlic score reported as 22 by Bob McGinn; the Kansas City Chiefs draft him in the third round, 63rd overall, the opening pick of the round.
- 2016Begins seven straight 1,000-yard receiving seasons, through 2022, an NFL record for tight ends.
- 2020Wins Super Bowl LIV on February 2 (31–20 over San Francisco); sets the tight-end single-season record with 1,416 receiving yards.
- 2022Launches the New Heights podcast with his brother Jason on September 8; finishes his remaining Cincinnati credit hours for his degree.
- 2023Wins Super Bowl LVII on February 12 (38–35 over Philadelphia), the first Super Bowl with brothers on opposing teams.
- 2024Passes Jerry Rice for the most postseason receptions (January); wins Super Bowl LVIII in overtime, 25–22 over San Francisco (February 11); receives his Cincinnati diploma (April 11); premieres as host of Prime Video’s Are You Smarter than a Celebrity? (October 16).
- 2026Opens his 14th season against Denver, moving into second place among NFL tight ends in career receiving yards; active on the Chiefs’ roster through Week 3, as of September.
Where the 104 figure came from
Following a claim back to its first appearance is the part almost nobody does — and it is what most people are actually asking.
No IQ test result has been published for Travis Kelce, and the only number that can be put on “Travis Kelce IQ,” 104, is arithmetic rather than a measurement: it is his reported Wonderlic score of 22 run through the double-it-and-add-60 rule of thumb (how a Wonderlic score converts to an IQ estimate). Conversion charts such as ACIS’s print 104 for any raw 22. Unlike the Wonderlic pages this site audited for Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers, whose circulating figures are 126 and 130, no aggregator page we could open prints a Kelce IQ figure of its own (where celebrity IQ numbers come from).
The Travis Kelce Wonderlic score of 22 comes from reporter Bob McGinn, who, ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio wrote in 2017, “obtains and discloses” prospects’ scores each year for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Wikipedia cites McGinn’s April 18, 2013 draft-prospect column for the 22, McGinn’s October 28, 2023 Go Long TD retrospective lists “Wonderlic test: 22” among Kelce’s measurables, and Sportskeeda repeated it in February 2024 as “reported.” It is not an official release, and JobTestPrep’s 2026 NFL guide says his score is “not publicly known.” It is also exactly typical: tight ends average 22 on the position list Wikipedia quotes from a 1984 book, and JobTestPrep prints the same average (Wonderlic averages by NFL position; the format on our Wonderlic practice test).
The rule of thumb reads a raw 20 as IQ 100 and adds about two IQ points per raw point, which is how a 22 becomes 104. ACIS, whose chart prints that result, traces the convention to old publisher manuals, says Wonderlic’s current FAQ publishes no conversion, and cites a 1981 study by Carl Dodrill that found a correlation of .93 between Wonderlic scores and Wechsler full-scale IQ in 120 adults: strong, but not identity. A 2009 study of 762 NFL players found the scores unrelated to later NFL performance, draft selection and games started, and the NFL dropped the Wonderlic as an official Combine component after the 2021 season (what a cognitive test score does and does not predict at work).
The phrase behind searches for “Travis Kelce football IQ” is praise for reading defenses, not a score: in a February 2023 CBS Sports piece on Super Bowl LVII, fellow tight end Dallas Goedert credited Kelce’s “football IQ” and his passion for the game, and Patrick Mahomes described his understanding of coverages (why intelligence is not limited to an IQ score). Among the Wonderlic-anchored athletes on this site, Kelce’s reported 22 sits just below Patrick Mahomes’s 24 (band 93–108), well below Tom Brady’s 33 (110–125) and Aaron Rodgers’s 35 (115–130), and far from the 48 reported for Ryan Fitzpatrick (145–160); those are gaps on a 50-question test, not a ranking of players, and none of it measures the skill those players describe.
How we read a number →Wikidata Q7836292 is the American football player born October 5, 1989 (Westlake, Ohio; Cleveland Heights High School; University of Cincinnati; Kansas City Chiefs), not a namesake. Wikipedia supports the birth facts, Cincinnati seasons and honors, the degree, the pre-draft table with a Wonderlic of 22 (cited to McGinn, April 18, 2013), Super Bowl dates and scores, 11 Pro Bowls, the record lists and receiving-yards table (Gonzalez 15,127; Witten 13,046), the 1984 position averages, the New Heights launch (September 8, 2022) and the quiz-show credit (premiered October 16, 2024).
McGinn’s list for Kelce includes “Wonderlic test: 22”; the piece calls pick No. 63 the opening selection of the third round and gives his 2012 line (13 starts; 45 receptions, 722 yards, eight touchdowns). Wikipedia cites McGinn’s April 18, 2013 Journal Sentinel column for the 22. Florio: each year McGinn “obtains and discloses” the scores; the test is 12 minutes, 50 questions.
Sportskeeda: the tight end “is reported to have earned a score of 22,” with no outlet or reporter named; no IQ figure. JobTestPrep: says his Wonderlic score “is not publicly known,” so sites do not agree it is known; prints tight end 22 and quarterback 24 as position averages; no IQ figure for him.
ACIS: its chart gives IQ 104 for a raw 22 (20 gives 100, 24 gives 108) under the double-it-and-add-60 convention, which it traces to old Wonderlic manuals while noting the publisher’s current FAQ publishes no conversion; calls it an estimate, not a measurement; cites Dodrill (1981), r = .93 with Wechsler full-scale IQ in 120 adults; no Kelce mention. Wonderlic Test Practice (unaffiliated): scores were regularly leaked until the last Combine use in 2021 and are hard to verify; the NFL dropped the test after 2021; no Kelce entry.
States that he attended UC from 2008 to 2012, started his football career as a quarterback, and in 2022 finished his remaining credit hours to complete a Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies from the College of Arts and Sciences; older brother Jason attended UC from 2006 to 2010.
TODAY: degree finished in 2022; diploma delivered by university president Neville Pinto at Fifth Third Arena during a New Heights live event on April 11, 2024. Patch: quarterback at Cleveland Heights High School, 2,539 yards of total offense as a senior, all-Lake Erie honors. CBS Sports (Super Bowl LVII): Dallas Goedert cites Kelce’s “football IQ” and passion for the game; Patrick Mahomes praises his understanding of coverages. Sports Illustrated: 1,416 yards in 2020 broke George Kittle’s tight-end record of 1,377.
Chiefs.com: enters his 14th season in 2026; first of two third-round picks (63rd overall) in 2013; Pro Bowl after every season since 2015; All-Pro years 2016 (first team), 2017 (second), 2018 (first), 2019 (second), 2020 (first), 2021 (second), 2022 (first); seventh straight 1,000-yard season in 2022; 13,002 career receiving yards entering 2026; 178 postseason receptions; 14 receptions, 231 yards and two touchdowns through Week 3. ESPN: active, age 36, 1,094 receptions and 13,233 yards through September 27. NFL.com: second all-time among tight ends in receiving yards after the 2026 opener; his 152nd postseason catch passed Rice’s 151 (AFC Championship Game, Baltimore).
In 762 NFL players from three draft classes, Wonderlic scores were unrelated to future NFL performance, to selection decisions in the draft and to the number of games started.
None appears in Wikipedia or Wikidata, the University of Cincinnati’s profile, Chiefs.com, ESPN, NFL.com, McGinn’s retrospective, Sportskeeda’s explainer or JobTestPrep’s guide, which says his Wonderlic score is not publicly known. Also checked with no Kelce entry: Wonderlic Test Practice’s NFL score list and Football IQ Score’s Wonderlic database. No GPA, SAT or ACT score was found.
Bands used for comparison: Mahomes 93–108 (reported Wonderlic 24), Brady 110–125 (33), Rodgers 115–130 (35), Fitzpatrick 145–160 (48), O’Neal 110–125. The rule of thumb here (about two IQ points per raw point above 20, treated as a ceiling) is the one those profiles use.
The sources behind our estimate
The figures that circulate for Travis Kelce, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.
The only IQ figure attached to Travis Kelce is arithmetic on his Wonderlic score: conversion charts such as ACIS’s print 104 for any raw score of 22. Lower numbers posted as jokes or insults are opinions about intelligence, not test results.
No published IQ test result exists for Travis Kelce. We checked Wikipedia and Wikidata, the University of Cincinnati, Chiefs.com, ESPN, NFL.com, Sportskeeda’s Wonderlic explainer and JobTestPrep’s 2026 NFL Wonderlic guide, which says his score is “not publicly known.” What exists is a reported Wonderlic of 22 out of 50 from the 2013 draft process, printed by reporter Bob McGinn (then of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) and repeated by Sportskeeda as “reported.” It is not an official release, and the sites that mention it do not all agree it is known.
With no separate circulating figure to test, the spread is the estimate’s own ends. The 104 is the same arithmetic, so it lands exactly on the ceiling, and nothing in the documented record we found points above it: the sourced record supports a number at or below it, not higher.
Want a number that does hold up? Every figure on this page is somebody’s claim. Take the 30-question test and get a percentile you can check rather than a figure you have to trust.
Travis Kelce — frequently asked
What is Travis Kelce’s IQ?
Travis Kelce’s IQ has never been published, and this site’s estimate is about 89–104. The only test score on record is a reported Wonderlic of 22 out of 50 from his 2013 draft process, the same 22 that position lists give tight ends. The 104 that the double-it-and-add-60 conversion gives for that 22 sits at the top of the band.
Did Travis Kelce take an IQ test?
No Travis Kelce IQ test result has been published. The one cognitive test on record is the Wonderlic, a 12-minute, 50-question hiring screen the NFL used in pre-draft testing, on which he reportedly scored 22. He hosted the quiz show Are You Smarter than a Celebrity? on Prime Video in 2024, but as host, not contestant.
What was Travis Kelce’s Wonderlic score?
Travis Kelce reportedly scored 22 out of 50 on the Wonderlic before the 2013 NFL Draft, according to reporter Bob McGinn, who has published prospects’ scores for years. It is a reported figure, not an official release, and 22 matches the tight-end average on the position list Wikipedia quotes from a 1984 book and on JobTestPrep’s 2026 guide.
What is Travis Kelce’s football IQ?
“Football IQ” is shorthand for how well a player reads defenses and adjusts, not a score, and no official football IQ metric is published. Fellow tight end Dallas Goedert credited Kelce’s football IQ and passion for the game in February 2023, and Patrick Mahomes has praised his grasp of coverages, but the only test number on record is a reported Wonderlic 22.
Is Travis Kelce a genius?
No test result supports calling Travis Kelce a genius, and the documented record is a different kind of evidence: three Super Bowl wins, seven straight 1,000-yard seasons and a Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies finished in 2022. His one reported test score, a Wonderlic 22, matches the tight-end average on position lists, which is why this site’s estimated IQ level for him is 89–104.
How does Travis Kelce’s estimated IQ compare with Patrick Mahomes’s and Tom Brady’s?
This site’s band for Kelce, 89–104, sits just below Patrick Mahomes’s 93–108 and well below Tom Brady’s 110–125, because his reported Wonderlic score, 22, is lower than Mahomes’s 24 and Brady’s 33. All three bands apply the same rule of thumb to unofficial scores, so differences of a few points are within the test’s error and are not a ranking.
Is Travis Kelce still playing in 2026?
Yes. As of September 2026, Travis Kelce, 36, is on the Kansas City Chiefs’ active roster in his 14th NFL season, and through Week 3 he has 14 receptions for 231 yards and two touchdowns. In the season opener against Denver he moved into second place among NFL tight ends in career receiving yards.
How does my IQ compare with Travis Kelce?
You can find out in about fifteen minutes. The IQ Metrics assessment is 30 questions, scored on the same 100-mean scale used throughout this page, so your result and the estimate above are at least expressed in the same units — one measured, one inferred. Once you have a number, the leaderboard shows where it would sit, and how we score and norm it explains the benchmarking.
Where does this estimate come from?
From the documented record rather than a test — the method is named above and set out in full under how we read a number. Compare it against the other athletes profiles, starting with Magnus Carlsen.
- Take the 30-question IQ test — get a measured score and percentile of your own
- Average IQ by country — how the scale behaves across populations
- How IQ Metrics scores its assessment — the method behind our own number
- More on how IQ testing works — reliability, error and what a score can and cannot say
- More athletes profiles — same field, same method
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