Superior intelligence, strong reasoning, roughly top 10% · Rarer than 1 in 11
🏛️ Mensa cutoff 130 — 10 points away
🌍 In the United States (national average ≈ 98, an estimate from test samples), an IQ of 120 is in the top 7.1%.
What an IQ of 120 means. Smarter than 90.9% of people. Classification: Superior — Superior intelligence, strong reasoning, roughly top 10%. Rarer than 1 in 11.
IQ
Classification
Percentile
100
Average
50.0%
120
Superior
90.9%
130
Very Superior / Gifted
97.7%
❓ FAQ
Is an IQ of 120 a good score?
An IQ of 120 falls in the "Superior" range and is higher than 90.9% of the population.
What percentile is an IQ of 120?
An IQ of 120 sits at the 90.9th percentile — the top 9.1% of the population. Roughly 1 in 11 people score this high.
Can you join Mensa with an IQ of 120?
Mensa requires roughly IQ 130 (top 2% on SD15); 120 is 10 points below the cutoff. Practice and a supervised test may close the gap.
How many people have an IQ of 120 or higher?
Roughly 738,811,407 people worldwide — about 9.1% of 8.1 billion.