IQ Score Guide / 135
Is 135 a Good IQ Score?
What an IQ of 135 means, where it ranks, and what it tells you about cognitive ability.
What an IQ of 135 means
This places you in the top 2% of the population — the threshold for Mensa membership. Exceptional abstract reasoning, rapid pattern recognition, and the capacity to identify connections others miss are hallmarks of this range.
Careers that commonly score in this range
Notable people reportedly in this range
All figures are estimates or reported by third-party sources — none are clinically verified.
Barack Obama
Harvard Law Review president and 44th US President — graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. Simonton's updated historiometric analysis estimates his IQ at approximately 130–140, with most published assessments clustering around 132–137.
Garry Kasparov
World Chess Champion for 15 years, widely regarded as the greatest chess player in history — IQ estimated at 135 by chess psychologists and sports scientists. Kasparov describes his thinking as combining deep pattern recognition with systematic long-range planning.
Al Gore
Former US Vice President, Harvard graduate, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate — IQ estimated at approximately 134 in published presidential and vice-presidential cognitive assessments.
J.K. Rowling
Author of the Harry Potter series — University of Exeter graduate in French and Classics. Published assessments estimate her IQ at approximately 128–136, consistent with the internal consistency and narrative complexity of a seven-volume fictional universe.
Recommended reading for this score range
The Intelligence Trap
David Robson
Why high IQ consistently fails to prevent poor decisions — and the evidence-based fixes.
View on Amazon →
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman
The definitive account of human cognitive architecture from a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist.
View on Amazon →
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