Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Low IQ High Achievement

If the school doesn't want you based on IQ score alone...maybe you don't want them. Not all schools are good matches. Find another that evaluates the global makeup of a student.

Jenny: Achievement comes from an intersection of ability, opportunity, and effort. If you're of slightly less ability, but taking full advantage of your opportunities, and putting forth a little more effort, that doesn't detract from your achievements in any way. In fact, this makes you quite a bit "smarter" than any of your peers who may be trying to squeak by based only on a higher ability.

I wouldn't worry about not getting into a top high school if I were you. It sounds like things are going wonderfully right where you're at.

Also, you didn't tell us what IQ test you took, or the score. It may very well be that you're selling yourself short.

Furthermore, "not gifted" does not equal "low IQ." An IQ of 130 only occurs in ~2% of the population, or once in every 44 individuals. If you're still in the top 5-15% (and your achievement suggests you are), then your IQ is still quite high.

Others have already explained why "ideally intelligent" is actually a BETTER thing than being highly gifted is.

Think of it this way-- is it "better" to be neurotypical? Or to be on the autistic spectrum? It depends on what you mean, right?

If this is a school for highly gifted students, then (and I mean this in the best possible way)... it may not be a good fit for you if you are "ideally intelligent."

No more than a really, REALLY awesome school for students with Apserger's syndrome (if such a thing exists-- I don't know) would be a good fit for a neurotypical and highly functional student would be.

A "great" school is only great if you fit the target student demographic dead center of the distribution. Do keep that in mind.

As others have noted, your data all seems to indicate that you are doing terrifically well right where you are!

Like others who have posted before me, I can explain what the difference is between high achievement and gifted behavior looks like all too well.

You might be gifted/highly gifted:


Reading because you are procrastinating, since that other unpleasant/trivial/meaningless task is just "busywork" anyway, and then having to RUSH to finish it. Sloppily/badly.

Nobody laughs at your "weird" jokes.

People call you a "freak" because of your interests.

You make people uncomfortable unless you hide how easy things are for you. You have to LIE about how long things take, or what grades you earned.

When you make the effort, you ALWAYS get 100%. Unless, you know, you get into that mode where you spend time overthinking the simple questions because you can't quite get into the not-too-bright teacher's head to see what s/he was actually thinking when s/he wrote the questions.

You are continuously impatient with how slow other people seem to think/process information.

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As another question for our OP-- how would you feel if you DID get in to this other school, and found that you were now, officially, one of the "slow" kids?

Do consider that. It can be hard to be a high achiever and suddenly find yourself surrounded by people who are world class high achievers. I've seen that before in college students and graduate students. Some people adjust fine, and others don't; a lot depends on how invested the individual is in "I'm one of the 'smart' kids" as their identity.

Side point: I'm not sure that everyone who skips a grade is PG, FWIW. I have a dd who started as the absolute youngest in grade and who skipped a grade and she is not PG. My grandmother started K at 4, turned 5 in October, and skipped both 3rd and 5th grade and also may not have been PG, although she was pretty darn smart.

As what I would call a 'natural born heretic' I do not subscribe as so many psuedo-intelligent folks do to the 'Obama personality cult' that the mainstream media has manufactured.

I do remember Obama's IQ scores being bandied around by the media and the number 127 sticks in my mind. If I remember correctly, that number was extrapolated from an 'Ivy average SAT' (my quotes) or something. As he (or at least his very slick campaign machine) have locked up the actual SAT scores, who knows what the actual objectively measured level of his cognitive ability is?

IMO, anyone that hides their credentials/test results etc is suspect automatically. It just boggles my mind that for 'mere mortals' to get a paying job they have to consent to searches of their background, credit rating, university transcripts etc but a person purportedly working *for* us doesn't have to make these details public. But there you have our rotten and almost completely unrepresentative of the masses political system.

End of rant - mods feel free to delete if too political.

Transcripts, yes; credit rating, yes; background checks, yes; tax returns, yes; but IQ test scores, no, at least IMHO. I don't think that any of us has to reveal our IQ scores, which aren't set in stone anyway, for any job or office. The only place that ever requested my IQ scores to participate/join/get the "job" was Mensa. Similarly, DYS requires them. Jobs, even public servant jobs, do not require one to reveal that IQ scores - again IMHO. Heck, most of the population has never taken an IQ test anyway!

Back to the OP so we don't side track too much! I've never heard anything like this and, anecdotally, all of the left handed people in my family are just as bright, if not brighter, than the rest of my family members. An article in Scientific American quotes studies that find pretty much identical IQs between right and left handed folks overall:


I wonder if what you heard was someone mistaking the studies that find higher rates of left handedness among those with mental retardation and learning disabilities, neither of which I can imagine applies to you given your achievement. That same SA article notes this finding.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-it-true-that-left-handed-people

My guess on this is twofold:

1) your IQ isn't likely "low" per se, just perhaps not in the top 2% that is considered "gifted." People with IQs in the top range of where most people fall (IQs around 110-115) can be very, very high achievers but not gifted. 66% of people have IQ scores within one standard deviation of the mean, meaning that 66% of people have IQ scores between 85-115 and would be considered "average." None the less, the performance of someone with an IQ of 115 will be stellar as compared to someone more toward the bottom or center of that "average" range. I've seen kids with IQs that are not dramatically above 100 (105 or so) perform in the top 1-5% of their grade with high motivation and because they are a really good fit for how schools are designed. I think that this article explains it well:
http://www.giftededucation.org.nz/documents/high-achievers-pdf.pdf

As she describes it, gifted is not differentiated from bright, high achiever on the surface by the gifted being higher achievers, but by the gifted being ones who learn differently and who may fit less well into the school setting and perhaps perform less "highly" as a result:

2) Perhaps you are someone with a lot of internal drive and drive really counts for a lot. Work ethic often counts for more than sheer ability. Is it also possible that you are on the older end for grade? In general, and I feel like a heretic saying this here b/c a lot of us (me included) have kids who are intentionally very young for grade some due to grade skips, people who are older for grade tend to perform more highly than the younger kids in the early grades and, often, that leads toward being tracked into high achieving classes and a self fulfilling prophecy where the older kids continue to perform better.

Another possibility is that the IQ test you took just didn't fully represent your ability. IQ tests have been knows to be wrong at times.

I only brought it up to show that you can succeed even with a < 'gifted' IQ and the number that I remember being bandied around was 127 which is in the 'optimal IQ' band, I think And becoming the POTUS is success beyond dispute. I never said that he ought to reveal his IQ test scores - I don't care about them one jot. I do think that his SAT scores and his transcripts ought to be available for public (his purported employers after all) scrutiny. Sorry, but I have such a strong reaction to double standards and overt hypocrisy.

Back to the OP - I don't think we need any 'studies' to tell us what commonsense does - that a strong drive to succeed, a fair helping of luck and a solid work ethic combined will always trump raw natural ability in just about everything (except IQ tests ). And as I posted earlier, IQ tests are just about irrelevant to everyday life.

It doesn't just apply to 'book learning' either - it is just as valid in other fields of endeavour. I still vividly remember the guy in Hoop Dreams that was just dripping natural ability but ended up as a car park attendant because he didn't appear to have enough drive to put up with and attend to what his coach was telling him.

Jenny--

You have everything you need to possibly succeed.

High intelligence, phenomenal motivation and intrinsic interest trumps "profound giftedness" under any circumstances.

As a 23 year old college student, I have a iq of 170 and it is not an easy way to live.

I feel a ubiquitous sense of loneliness, pervasive frustration (that I keep to myself) with the facile nature of my classes, and I cannot take multiple choices well because I have a poor habit of questioning everything and a minimal ability to understand precisely what the professor seeks.

I rarely sleep because of my research that takes over my every thought; I also end up putting this before my own assignments (which obviously does not breed the best success with my grades).

I keep a lot to myself on efforts expended on course assignments, and make a conscientious effort to talk about "normal" things--my family cannot understand my interests and even seem to fear my abnormal fascination for mathematics, psychology, and modern physics. Overall, the sense of boredom and lack of challenge overwhelms much of my life.

Jenny, the point of this is to tell you that being a "genius"--quotes indicate the inherently subjective nature of this--bodes many problems as well that are not often discussed or regarded. You are perfect exactly as you are, and you have no need to change what you are doing. Keep up with your extracurricular activities, phenomenal coursework, and social endeavors. You are going to be a great success!