Can average intelligence thrive in college?

  • Context: Schools 
  • Thread starter Thread starter FishmanGeertz
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    College
Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
Sign up Log in
75 replies · 19K views
brocks said:
Not true at all. Academic success comes easier to those gifted mentally, just as athletic success comes easier to those gifted physically.

That said, the vast majority of college students are of average intelligence and don't work very hard, so if you are of average intelligence and *do* work hard, you will very likely do well, and may do better than a genius who goofs off.

tizen_kane_clapping_gif_RE_If_The_Internet_Suddenly_Disappeared_How_Wed_Get_Laid-s480x360-132744.gif
 
Physics news on Phys.org
FishmanGeertz said:
Are you saying geniuses have poor social skills?

No. The argument presented by the book was that after an IQ level of (around) 130, IQ level is not a major factor in predicting "success". And again, the author was not talking about academia. He said one of the things that can predict "success" after the 130 IQ level is social skills. So social skills will be the difference why a guy with an IQ level of 135 was more "successful" then a guy with an IQ level of 155. I have heard (not sure if it was from that book) that when people get into the extremes (165+), their social skills can take a beating.
 
Taking an IQ test, imo, is a useless thing to do.

Say I take an IQ test and I score super high. I will most likely become a more arrogant person. Now say I score super low or average on an IQ test. I will feel bad about it for the rest of my life. Neither of these cases is appealing to me.

If you truly want to show how intelligent you are, make a lasting contribution in physics/mathematics like Einstein or Feynman. These two, as far as I know, were never associated with a gigantic IQ. But imo, their intelligence far exceeds the top IQ scorers.
 
Ah yes, the good old "but they're too good, I can never be better!" argument. I once thought like this, but in order to be the best version of myself, I have to ignore what others do and try to better myself as much as possible, regardless of where I'll be after putting in 110% for years on end. Also, intelligence to some extent can be somewhat of a catch 22 in that to be intelligent you must have a well exercised brain, but to have a well exercised brain, you must be intelligent. It's like how nearly all males are capable of having 18" biceps and yet nobody has 18" cut in nature. If you put in 110% effort for a few years toward mathematics, you will be better than the vast majority. Sure you may not end up being that guy setting world records, but you'll still be good, even by the standards of the gold medal championship winners in terms of academia.
 
If Feyman took an IQ test for writing, he would've been as dumb as me lol. I swear most of today's "iq test" are seriously just brain teasers and knowledge tests
 
There is a language part in a standard IQ-test?
 
brocks said:
Not true at all. Academic success comes easier to those gifted mentally, just as athletic success comes easier to those gifted physically.

Sure it comes easier, but the fact of the matter is the work you put into something, be it academics or athleticism, is vastly more important than your natural gifts, especially in this era of tremendous competition. The only exception is if you're talking about "success" meaning the olympic athletes and Einstein/Feynman's of the fields.

If you were to grab a random 'genius' and gave him only a few months to study physics, he most likely wouldn't be able to produce any significant research because you just need to do a lot of work over long periods of time to become really good at something relative to others.

Same deal with athletics. Look at Tiger Woods (ok so I'm using 'athletics loosely'). He has a natural gift that makes him the greatest golfer ever. However, he practices in unbelievable ways. Thousands of hours a year. If he only practiced an hour or two a day, he would never make it in the PGA.
 
flyingpig said:
If Feyman took an IQ test for writing, he would've been as dumb as me lol. I swear most of today's "iq test" are seriously just brain teasers and knowledge tests

IQ tests are supposed to test problem solving ability and pattern recognition aka how 'clever' you are. In fact, an ideal IQ test could be taken by someone that's illiterate.

I have never heard of an 'IQ test for writing.'
 
What about college courses in psychology? Does that require you to be a genius to figure out?
 
FishmanGeertz said:
What about college courses in psychology? Does that require you to be a genius to figure out?

You have to do statistics in psychology but its more skewed towards the "statistics" parts of statistics (ie not probability).

You also have to do a lot of reading.

Also if you want to work in that area you will probably need a masters degree in psychology and to get into that you will need very good marks from your bachelors.

If you want to do psychology I suggest you actually speak to a counselor or a psychologist and find out what goes on.

Many psychologists are involved in work such as working with troubled or homeless youth, working with drug addicts, working with kids that come from bad homes, and so on.

This is something that a lot of people don't realize. Its not all like the movies where Tony Soprano goes into see his shrink and talks about his anger issues and his previous hits for the week, then gets paid 200 bucks for the hourly visit.

There are people who do private practice, don't get me wrong, but just be aware of what the field is representative of.
 
chiro said:
Its not all like the movies where Tony Soprano goes into see his shrink and talks about his anger issues and his previous hits for the week, then gets paid 200 bucks for the hourly visit.

Just nit-picking, but I need to point out the fact that the character from the Sopranos is a psychiatrist, not a psychologist.

To be a psychiatrist you first become an MD, and then you specialize.
 
zif. said:
Just nit-picking, but I need to point out the fact that the character from the Sopranos is a psychiatrist, not a psychologist.

To be a psychiatrist you first become an MD, and then you specialize.

Haha yeah you are right, maybe I should have mentioned "One night at McCools" with the scene with Paul Reiser.
 
No surprise...the biggest criticism of IQ tests and SAT are from those who tend to score low in them
 
elfboy said:
No surprise...the biggest criticism of IQ tests and SAT are from those who tend to score low in them

Troll, troll, troll your post, gently down the screen...
 
zif. said:
IQ tests are supposed to test problem solving ability and pattern recognition aka how 'clever' you are. In fact, an ideal IQ test could be taken by someone that's illiterate.

I have never heard of an 'IQ test for writing.'

I had one when I was in elementary school, well it was more like "I give you a picture, I point to that object or place or thing and you tell me what it is"

I actually did pretty bad in that part...
 
IQ matters. But average IQ is perfectly fine for college. A large majority falls within the average range of intelligence. There are people out there who thinks having a high IQ makes them better than others. Many people out there think they can judge others' intelligence just from casually interacting with them. But this shouldn't taint discussion about a number that predicts performance in so many settings.

Working harder than other classmates is not very fun under any circumstances. When you work harder not to perform beyond their level but just to perform at their level, then it's really not fun. It's good to consider your IQ in your plans. The focus here isn't on limiting yourself, it's about finding where you have the greatest comparative advantage. Your interests factor in, too of course, but it's good to have a clear picture. Sometimes, when you realize that "I can make more money doing X, have more free time while studying to become X and achieve greater success in relation to my peers while doing X" it becomes less appealing to say "I want do become a string theorist because I want to uncover at least a little bit of nature's wonderful mystery".
 
Last edited:
FishmanGeertz said:
This year, I will probably be attending post-secondary education, either at a technical school or community college (I can't afford a university yet). I heard that college-level coursework is extremely advanced and very difficult when compared to high school academics. And that the only people whom really succeed in college are those with genius-level intellect (an IQ above 140).

My question is this, could a person with at least average intelligence (IQ 85-115) attend college and do fairly well? Almost all people fall within that IQ range, and there are millions and millions of people attending college. Only 2% of the entire populace has an IQ above the "genius" 140 mark. I would imagine most of them are attending Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and so forth.

Most community college courses are on par with high school. However, depending on the university, the courses could be just somewhat more challenging or extremely more challenging than community college work.

And, no, you don't need a genius-level IQ to succeed in college. There are millions of Americans who've received college degrees with only an average IQ.
 
FishmanGeertz said:
My question is this, could a person with at least average intelligence (IQ 85-115) attend college and do fairly well? Almost all people fall within that IQ range, and there are millions and millions of people attending college. Only 2% of the entire populace has an IQ above the "genius" 140 mark. I would imagine most of them are attending Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and so forth.

According to http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_106.asp, there are roughly 2.8M graduates in a year. Let's say 3M to keep the numbers nice. If 2% of them have IQs above 140, we are talking about 60,000 people. If we take a look at http://collegeapps.about.com/od/choosingacollege/tp/ivy-league-schools.htm, we find that the ivy league schools have a total undergraduate enrollment of about 66K, of which roughly one quarter would be freshmen, or about 17,000. This list leaves off non-ivy league schools such as Stanford, Cal Tech, MIT, etc, so let's say that there are roughly 25,000 openings in the most prestigious schools.

Therefore, we conclude that most geniuses do *not* go to prestigious schools.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
IQ doesn't mean anything, except from what I've read, it possibly can be used to indicate a very low intelligence level due to possibly some kind of disorder, which would be apparently obvious already. This reminds me of a story; my friend once wanted to take an I.Q. test with me to see whose smarter. I said no, because they don't mean anything. He ended up going online and taking it anyway for 10 minutes. By the time he was done, they wanted to send it to his email, and when they sent it to his email, they said he had to pay to get his results. So I was automatically the more intelligent.
brocks said:
Not true at all. Academic success comes easier to those gifted mentally, just as athletic success comes easier to those gifted physically.

That said, the vast majority of college students are of average intelligence and don't work very hard, so if you are of average intelligence and *do* work hard, you will very likely do well, and may do better than a genius who goofs off.

What does it mean to be gifted mentally? Presumably, the person has some inherent genetic predisposition to learn better. There are only a handful of people in the world like this (autistic people). To someone who's studied the brain and psychology, its ridiculous to say someone can be born more intelligent; they can only be born with disabilities or 'lacks'. No one is born with extra portions of the brain which makes them more smart. Tabula rasa is a blank slate given to all of us at birth. If we took Einstein out his German residence when he was born and placed him in a New York ghetto, you honestly don't believe he would be even remotely intelligent in physics later and neither do I. So, the human is more complex than we think and it won't help to make pre-set assumptions.
 
Last edited:
New ton said:
IQ doesn't mean anything, except from what I've read, it possibly can be used to indicate a very low intelligence level due to possibly some kind of disorder, which would be apparently obvious already. This reminds me of a story; my friend once wanted to take an I.Q. test with me to see whose smarter. I said no, because they don't mean anything. He ended up going online and taking it anyway for 10 minutes. By the time he was done, they wanted to send it to his email, and when they sent it to his email, they said he had to pay to get his results. So I was automatically the more intelligent.

What does it mean to be gifted mentally? Presumably, the person has some inherent genetic predisposition to learn better. There are only a handful of people in the world like this (autistic people). To someone who's studied the brain and psychology, its ridiculous to say someone can be born more intelligent; they can only be born with disabilities or 'lacks'. No one is born with extra portions of the brain which makes them more smart. Tabula rasa is a blank slate given to all of us at birth. If we took Einstein out his German residence when he was born and placed him in a New York ghetto, you honestly don't believe he would be even remotely intelligent in physics later and neither do I. So, the human is more complex than we think and it won't help to make pre-set assumptions.

People with high IQ's usually excel at "brainy" subjects such as math, physics, engineering, and other sciences. Do you think that someone with a mentally deficient IQ of 70, could earn even an associates degree in math/physics? I mean, how many physicists, mathematicians, engineers, chemists, doctors, and biologists can you name whom have IQ's below 100?
 
Choppy said:
The last thing I would want to do is discourage people from studying something they find interesting because or their results on an arbitrary test.

Unfortunately this happens more often than you might think.
 
Frion said:
IQ matters.

I wish I could remember which book it was I read this tidbit in...

When researchers look at those most successful in academia, what they find is that, to be capable of success, you only have to be smart enough. Once you're sufficiently smart (say, about 120 IQ), no additional IQ points will improve your chances of success. Once that minimum IQ level has been attained, what makes one more successful is work ethic, persistence, creativity, etc. A physicist with an IQ of 180 isn't necessarily going to be any better a researcher than his colleague down the hall with an IQ of 130.
 
If it's any sort of credible claim it must have been based on Terman's study of high IQ individuals. Some commentators claim it was a failure. Indeed, Terman thought he was studying future "geniuses" but it turned out he was just studying children who would, as a group, become incredibly successful. If you evaluate just on performance, his group did better than an equally large group of randomly selected 115-130 IQ individuals.

I was mostly replying to those claiming "IQ doesn't matter at all". It's unfortunate that psychometrics gets such a bad rap because a lot of idiots out there misuse IQ. It's just one more piece of information that can help people make better decisions about themselves in absence of better information. We make decisions based on our subjective appraisal of our own intelligence anyway, so why not add something that has some hard data behind it?
 
Geezer said:
I wish I could remember which book it was I read this tidbit in...

When researchers look at those most successful in academia, what they find is that, to be capable of success, you only have to be smart enough. Once you're sufficiently smart (say, about 120 IQ), no additional IQ points will improve your chances of success. Once that minimum IQ level has been attained, what makes one more successful is work ethic, persistence, creativity, etc. A physicist with an IQ of 180 isn't necessarily going to be any better a researcher than his colleague down the hall with an IQ of 130.

What about people the "average" standard deviation IQ's of ~100? Do you think someone with an IQ of around 110 earn a masters degree or PhD in physics?
 
TMFKAN64 said:
According to http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_106.asp, there are roughly 2.8M graduates in a year. Let's say 3M to keep the numbers nice. If 2% of them have IQs above 140, we are talking about 60,000 people. If we take a look at http://collegeapps.about.com/od/choosingacollege/tp/ivy-league-schools.htm, we find that the ivy league schools have a total undergraduate enrollment of about 66K, of which roughly one quarter would be freshmen, or about 17,000. This list leaves off non-ivy league schools such as Stanford, Cal Tech, MIT, etc, so let's say that there are roughly 25,000 openings in the most prestigious schools.

Therefore, we conclude that most geniuses do *not* go to prestigious schools.
I believe you're assuming there is an even distribution of IQs at prestigious schools. My guess would be that it is the opposite, with a very strong bias towards higher IQs.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
TylerH said:
I believe you're assuming there is an even distribution of IQs at prestigious schools. My guess would be that it is the opposite, with a very strong bias towards higher IQs.
No he did not, he did a very generous estimate that 100% of the people at the prestigious schools had over 140 IQ and he also assumed that college students aren't smarter than average people.
 
Klockan3 said:
No he did not, he did a very generous estimate that 100% of the people at the prestigious schools had over 140 IQ and he also assumed that college students aren't smarter than average people.

Top-tier colleges like Yale, MIT, Stanford, and Harvard, require SAT scores of over 2200 and GPA's of almost 4.0

I would imagine most of the pupils there have staggeringly high intellects.
 
Klockan3 said:
No he did not, he did a very generous estimate that 100% of the people at the prestigious schools had over 140 IQ and he also assumed that college students aren't smarter than average people.
Oh! I see, now. I misread.

FishmanGeertz said:
Top-tier colleges like Yale, MIT, Stanford, and Harvard, require SAT scores of over 2200 and GPA's of almost 4.0

I would imagine most of the pupils there have staggeringly high intellects.
That may be true, but the point of what most people are saying here is that it's not impossible for someone with an IQ of 100 to get in. Even the usefulness of IQ is questioned by some. By the theory of multiple intelligences(which I believe), it's possible you are a complete idiot in some fields, but a genius in others. Go with a field you're a genius in.

I'm a good example of this. Try to talk math with me and you can come to no other conclusion but that I'm a bumbling fool. Allow me the time to express my thoughts in writing and it's much more likely you'll see I'm not a fool, IMNSHO. This in analogous in how it shows that in communication skills, I have an "IQ" of ~80 but a math "IQ" of >100. I use the term "IQ" informally.

This is a reason I hate the SAT. I want to go to a math school, so, if I can take (and excel in) calculus of a single, of many, and diff eq, all while in high school, why should they care I can't write a great essay about [insert stupid prompt I can't talk about here] in 20min? My answer: They shouldn't.
 
Last edited:
Geezer said:
I wish I could remember which book it was I read this tidbit in...

When researchers look at those most successful in academia, what they find is that, to be capable of success, you only have to be smart enough. Once you're sufficiently smart (say, about 120 IQ), no additional IQ points will improve your chances of success. Once that minimum IQ level has been attained, what makes one more successful is work ethic, persistence, creativity, etc. A physicist with an IQ of 180 isn't necessarily going to be any better a researcher than his colleague down the hall with an IQ of 130.

It's been kicked around in a number of popular books lately. One that comes to mind is Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers.