IQ 123
Is 123 a good IQ? What it means
123 sits in the middle of the Superior band. Here is where that puts you on the curve, how common it is, and what the score does and does not predict.
Short answer
An IQ of 123 is well above average. It is higher than about 93.7% of people, which puts it at the 93.7 percentile. About 1 in 16 people score 123 or higher, and the WAIS-IV labels it Superior (120 to 129). It is 1.53 standard deviations above the mean of 100.
Specimen · IQ 123
123IQ
- Classification
- Superior
- Percentile
- 93.7
- Rarity
- 1 in 16
- z-score
- +1.53
Curious where you would land? IQ Octopus estimates your IQ from 25 visual puzzles in about 12 minutes.
| Percentile | 93.7 |
| Share scoring 123 or higher | 6.3% (about 1 in 16) |
| Out of 1,000 people | about 63 at or above |
| Standard deviations from the mean (z) | +1.53 |
| WAIS-IV classification | Superior (120 to 129) |
| Same percentile, SD 16 scale | 125 |
| Same percentile, SD 24 scale | 137 |
What an IQ of 123 means on the scale
Modern IQ tests report a deviation IQ: scores are standardized so the mean is 100 and the standard deviation is 15 within each age group (Wikipedia: Intelligence quotient). On that scale 123 is 1.53 standard deviations above the mean. It is outside the 85 to 115 range that holds about 68% of people, but inside the 70 to 130 range that holds about 95%. (the 68-95-99.7 rule)
In a room of 30 people your age, about 2 would be expected to score 123 or higher. Put another way, about 94 out of every 100 people score below 123.
The Superior band: 120 to 129
The WAIS-IV labels 120 to 129 as Superior (Wikipedia: IQ classification): clearly above average, between about one and a third and two standard deviations above the mean. About 7.2% of people score in this band, so it is smaller than High Average below it but far larger than the open-ended Very Superior band above it.
The band runs right up to two thresholds people often ask about. Very Superior starts at 130, and Mensa's line, the 98th percentile, falls at about 131 on a scale with standard deviation 15 (Mensa International). From 123, that is 8 points away. Measurement error on clinical tests is around plus or minus 5 points (Wechsler, 2008), so for the upper half of this band the true score could sit on either side of those lines.
Where 123 sits inside the band
123 is 3 points above the floor of the Superior band (120) and 6 points below its ceiling (129). Of the people who score in this band, about 42% score below 123.
Clinical IQ scores carry measurement error of around plus or minus 5 points at 95% (Wechsler, 2008). A measured 123 is consistent with a true score anywhere from 118 to 128, which is the 88.5 to 96.9 percentile. That range spans two labels, High Average and Superior, so the band name is the least certain part of the result. A short online test has a wider range than a clinical one, so read any single number as the middle of a span.
What an IQ of 123 does and does not predict
At this level, the research links higher scores with better average outcomes in school and work, but the links are correlations across many people. They do not tell you how any one person with a 120-something will do.
Across large groups, the links are real. General intelligence at age 11 correlated 0.81 with exam results at 16 in about 70,000 English children (Deary, Strand, Smith & Fernandes, 2007), a review of 85 years of workplace research put the link with job performance at 0.51 (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998), and a 2007 meta-analysis found correlations of about 0.56 with education and 0.23 with income (Strenze, 2007). Those describe tendencies across many people. None of them let anyone predict an individual life from one number. The guide to what IQ predicts explains what a correlation of that size means.
Same score, different tests
Older Stanford-Binet forms used a standard deviation of 16, and the Cattell Culture Fair III scale uses 24 (Wikipedia: IQ classification). The same percentile as 123 on a standard-deviation-15 test reads as about 125 on the first and 137 on the second, so check which scale a number is on before comparing scores from different tests.
Nearby scores
| IQ | Percentile | Rarity | Classification |
|---|---|---|---|
| IQ 110 | 74.8 | 1 in 4 | High Average |
| IQ 115 | 84.1 | 1 in 6 | High Average |
| IQ 120 | 90.9 | 1 in 11 | Superior |
| IQ 121 | 91.9 | 1 in 12 | Superior |
| IQ 122 | 92.9 | 1 in 14 | Superior |
| IQ 124 | 94.5 | 1 in 18 | Superior |
| IQ 125 | 95.2 | 1 in 21 | Superior |
| IQ 126 | 95.8 | 1 in 24 | Superior |
| IQ 130 | 97.7 | 1 in 44 | Very Superior |
| IQ 135 | 99.02 | 1 in 100 | Very Superior |
IQ 122 · IQ 124 · every score on the IQ chart · IQ percentile calculator · the seven classification bands
Sources
- Intelligence quotient. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient
- IQ classification. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_classification
- 68-95-99.7 rule. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/68%E2%80%9395%E2%80%9399.7_rule
- Wechsler, D. (2008). WAIS-IV Technical and Interpretive Manual. Pearson.
- Deary, I. J., Strand, S., Smith, P., & Fernandes, C. (2007). Intelligence, 35(1), 13-21. doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2006.02.001
- Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1998). Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 262-274. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.124.2.262
- Strenze, T. (2007). Intelligence, 35(5), 401-426. doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2006.09.004