The Smartest Colleges in America, 2023 List

The top 25 US Colleges/Universities based on average IQ test score estimates of their undergraduate students. We used SAT scores as a proxy to estimate the IQ test scores.

You can use this table to see which US Colleges/Universities you can, or could, have high probability to be admitted to. For example, if your IQ test score estimate is 144, it would be easier for you to have a total SAT score of 1535 and be admitted to MIT. Whereas IQ test score of 119 corresponds to an SAT score of 1175 which is the average SAT score for students at Sacred Heart University.

Start at the FAQ section below to learn more.

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Ranking School Students IQ Test Score Estimate Percentile SAT Score
1 Caltech 145.4 99.88 1557.00
2 MIT 143.9 99.83 1535.00
3 Olin College 143.4 99.81 1528.00
4 Rice 143.4 99.81 1527.00
4 Vanderbilt 143.4 99.81 1527.00
6 HMC 143 99.79 1521.00
6 JHU 143 99.79 1521.00
6 UChicago 143 99.79 1521.00
9 Columbia 142.9 99.79 1520.00
9 Northwestern 142.9 99.79 1520.00
9 Stanford 142.9 99.79 1520.00
12 Yale 142.5 99.77 1514.00
13 CMU 142.4 99.76 1513.00
13 Harvard 142.4 99.76 1513.00
13 UPenn 142.4 99.76 1513.00
16 Pomona 142 99.74 1507.00
17 Duke 141.9 99.74 1505.00
18 Brown 141.5 99.72 1500.00
18 Cornell 141.5 99.72 1500.00
18 Princeton 141.5 99.72 1500.00
21 NYU 141.1 99.69 1493.00
22 Dartmouth 141 99.69 1492.00
23 Tufts 141 99.69 1492.00
24 Northeastern University 140.5 99.65 1485.00
24 Swarthmore College 140.5 99.65 1485.00

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School Students IQ Test Score Estimate Percentile SAT Score
Williams 142.2 99.75 1510.00
Notre Dame 140.2 99.63 1480.00
Emory 140.2 99.63 1480.00
Georgetown 140.2 99.63 1480.00
USC 140.2 99.63 1480.00
Boston College 140.2 99.63 1480.00
Claremont McKenna College 140.2 99.63 1480.00
Vassar 140.2 99.63 1480.00
Wellesley 139.5 99.58 1470.00
UCLA 138.8 99.52 1460.00
University of Virginia 138.8 99.52 1460.00
Middlebury 138.8 99.52 1460.00
University of Michigan 138.1 99.45 1450.00
Georgia Tech 138.1 99.45 1450.00
Pitzer 138.1 99.45 1450.00
Scripps 138.1 99.45 1450.00
Rochester 138.1 99.45 1450.00
Berkeley 137.5 99.38 1440.00
Boston University 137.5 99.38 1440.00
William & Mary 137.5 99.38 1440.00
RPI 137.5 99.38 1440.00
Tulane 137.5 99.38 1440.00
UIUC 136.8 99.29 1430.00
UW Madison 136.8 99.29 1430.00
Wake Forest 136.8 99.29 1430.00
Bowdoin 136.1 99.2 1420.00
UNC Chapel Hill 136.1 99.2 1420.00
Villanova 136.1 99.2 1420.00
Lehigh 135.4 99.09 1410.00
Trinity 135.4 99.09 1410.00
GWU 134.7 98.96 1400.00
SUNY Binghamton 134.1 98.85 1390.00
Stony Brook 134.1 98.85 1390.00
UF 134.1 98.85 1390.00
The University of Miami 133.4 98.7 1380.00
UCSD 132.7 98.54 1370.00
UT Austin 132.7 98.54 1370.00
AU 132 98.36 1360.00
Rutgers 132 98.36 1360.00
UGA 132 98.36 1360.00
UMass Amherst 132 98.36 1360.00
Pitt 132 98.36 1360.00
UCSB 131.7 98.27 1355
OSU 131.3 98.15 1350.00
Pepperdine 131.3 98.15 1350.00
UW 131.3 98.15 1350.00
LMU 130.7 97.97 1340.00
UC Irvine 130.1 97.76 1332
BYU 130 97.72 1330.00
Cal Poly 130 97.72 1330.00
UConn 130 97.72 1330.00
UVM 130 97.17 1310.00
Chapman 128.6 97.17 1310.00
Drexel 128.6 97.17 1310.00
Syracuse 128.6 97.17 1310.00
Texas A&M 128.6 97.17 1310.00
Virginia Tech 128.6 96.86 1300.00
Penn State 127.9 96.86 1300.00
University of San Francisco 127.3 96.55 1290.00
UT Dallas 127.9 96.19 1280.00
CU Boulder 126.6 95.79 1270.00
IU Bloomington 125.9 95.79 1270.00
Miami University 125.9 95.79 1270.00
Gonzaga University 125.4 95.45 1262.00
UC Davis 125.2 95.35 1260.00
Baylor 125.2 95.35 1260.00
University of Portland 125.2 95.35 1260.00
UC Santa Cruz 125.2 94.88 1250.00
University of Arizona 124.5 94.88 1250.00
University of Cincinnati 124.5 94.45 1250.00
TCU 123.9 94.45 1240.00
University of Iowa 123.9 93.9 1230.00
Seattle University 123.9 93.9 1227.00
Temple University 123.2 93.32 1220.00
Pace University 122.5 93.32 1220.00
University of Alabama 122.5 92.69 1210.00
Michigan State University 121.8 92.69 1210.00
Montana State University - Bozeman 121.2 90.21 1200.00
Oregon State University - Corvallis 120.8 91.73 1195.00
UC Riverside 119.4 90.21 1175.00
Sacred Heart University 119.4 90.21 1175.00
Washington State University - Pullman 116.0 85.69 1125.00

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FAQ
  1. What can I do with this table?
    You can see which Universities would be more likely to admit you based on SAT scores. If you have not taken an SAT yet or if you are from a country that does not administer the SAT you can use your estimated IQ test score to determine what your SAT score might be.
  2. Does SAT matter anymore? I read some Colleges including Berkeley stopped using SAT scores.
    Yes SAT matters as most Universities/Colleges use it. Some colleges made SAT optional during Covid and few decided to not accept SAT scores anymore, to be more flexible in who to admit.
  3. Are SAT and IQ test scores correlated?
    Yes. The coefficient of correlation was reported to be greater than 0.8, which means there is a strong correlation.
  4. Why SAT and IQ Test scores correlate with each other. In other words, why a high IQ person also scores high in SAT and why a person scoring high in SAT also scores high in IQ Test?
    Because SAT is actually based on an IQ test. You can read about it here.
  5. How strong is a correlation coefficient of 0.8?
    Professor Ratner's paper has a very good description of what this means.
  6. Is there a scientific publication showing the correlation data?
    Yes. You can check the Figure 1 of this paper published by Professor Douglas K. Detterman in the journal "Psychological Science" which includes data, graphs and analysis.
  7. Does this mean all students from a higher ranking school are smarter compared to all students from lower ranked Universities?
    No. These are average values. But you can expect a randomly selected student from the higher ranked school to be smarter than a randomly selected student at a lower ranked school.
  8. Does it mean most students of higher ranked school are smarter than most students of lower ranked school?
    Mostly yes. Unless lower ranked school admitted students with low scores more intensely. Then, its distribution curve of scores will be left skewed. Standard deviation considers square value of each value’s difference to the mean. So most students of such schools may still be smarter compared to the students of schools that we ranked higher. UC Berkeley is a strong candidate to fit to this assumption.
  9. Is the correlation of SAT and IQ test score strong for all IQ test scores?
    No. Correlation is weaker at the very high and very low SAT scores. This is typical in statistical analysis as edge values will have lower precision. For example, a Caltech student may be smarter than an MIT student, even though MIT ranks slightly higher in this ranking. Also, high SAT scores will tend to predict lower IQ test scores than it should be and the lower SAT scores will tend to predict higher IQ test scores than it should be, since IQ test scores tend to display regression to the mean for edge values.
  10. Which mathematical formula did you use?
    IQ = 39.545 + 0.068*(SAT score) from Murray, C. (2013). Coming Apart, page 375.
  11. How can I know my IQ test score estimate?
    You can use our IQ test score estimation product.
  12. What is the average IQ in Harvard?
    Average IQ of Harvard undergraduate students is 142.4.
  13. What is the IQ of students at MIT?
    14. Average IQ of students at MIT is 143.9.
  14. Are MIT students smart?
    Yes, MIT students have an average IQ of 143.9 making them ranked second after Caltech students who have an average IQ of 145.4.
  15. What is the smartest university in the world?
    16. Smartest University in US is California Institute of Technology (Caltech) with average student IQ of 145.4. There is a good change it is also the smartest University in the World as US has best schools worldwide.
  16. What is the #1 college in the US?
    California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is the #1 college in US as it has the smartest students with average IQ estimation of 145.4.
  17. Which Ivy League is considered the best?
    Columbia University ranks slight higher compared to Harvard and Princeton in our list with average IQ of 142.9. However, harvard is considered to be better compared to Columbia and Princeton with its long standing reputation.
  18. What college has the most successful students?
    California Institute of Technology (Caltech) students are the most succesful students as Caltech requires the highest average SAT score for admission and Caltech students are the smartest students in US with average IQ of 145.4
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