IQ 65
What does an IQ of 65 mean?
65 is well inside the Extremely Low band, which covers 69 and below. 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 65 is well below average. It is higher than about 0.98% of people, which puts it at the 0.98 percentile. About 1 in 100 people score 65 or lower, and the WAIS-IV labels it Extremely Low (69 and below). It is 2.33 standard deviations below the mean of 100.
Specimen · IQ 65
65IQ
- Classification
- Extremely Low
- Percentile
- 0.98
- Rarity
- 1 in 100
- z-score
- −2.33
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| Percentile | 0.98 |
| Share scoring 65 or lower | 0.98% (about 1 in 100) |
| Out of 1,000 people | about 10 at or below |
| Standard deviations from the mean (z) | -2.33 |
| WAIS-IV classification | Extremely Low (69 and below) |
| Same percentile, SD 16 scale | 63 |
| Same percentile, SD 24 scale | 44 |
What an IQ of 65 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 65 is 2.33 standard deviations below the mean. It is outside the 70 to 130 range that holds about 95% of people, but inside the 55 to 145 range that holds about 99.7%. (the 68-95-99.7 rule)
In a room of 30 people your age, fewer than 1 (about 1 in every 102 groups of 30) would be expected to score 65 or lower. Put another way, about 99 out of every 100 people score above 65.
The Extremely Low band: 69 and below
Extremely Low is the WAIS-IV label for scores of 69 and below, more than two standard deviations under the mean (Wikipedia: IQ classification). From the normal curve, about 2.1% of people score in this range.
A score this low from a short online test should be treated as unreliable. Misreading the instructions, skipping items, running out of time or testing on a phone can all produce it. If you have real questions about a learning or intellectual disability, for yourself or someone you care for, a licensed psychologist can give a full standardized assessment.
Where 65 sits inside the band
65 is 4 points below the top of the Extremely Low band (69). Of the people who score in this band, about 43% score below 65.
Clinical IQ scores carry measurement error of around plus or minus 5 points at 95% (Wechsler, 2008). A measured 65 is consistent with a true score anywhere from 60 to 70, which is the 0.38 to 2.3 percentile. That range spans two labels, Extremely Low and Borderline, 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 65 does and does not predict
Only a full clinical assessment, not one number from one session, can say what a score in this range means for a particular person.
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 65 on a standard-deviation-15 test reads as about 63 on the first and 44 on the second, so check which scale a number is on before comparing scores from different tests.
Nearby scores
| IQ | Percentile | Rarity | Classification |
|---|---|---|---|
| IQ 62 | 0.56 | 1 in 180 | Extremely Low |
| IQ 63 | 0.68 | 1 in 150 | Extremely Low |
| IQ 64 | 0.82 | 1 in 120 | Extremely Low |
| IQ 66 | 1.2 | 1 in 85 | Extremely Low |
| IQ 67 | 1.4 | 1 in 72 | Extremely Low |
| IQ 68 | 1.6 | 1 in 61 | Extremely Low |
| IQ 70 | 2.3 | 1 in 44 | Borderline |
| IQ 75 | 4.8 | 1 in 21 | Borderline |
| IQ 80 | 9.1 | 1 in 11 | Low Average |
IQ 64 · IQ 66 · 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