What Is Hillary Clinton's IQ?

Hillary Clinton's IQ is unknown. No verified score from a professionally administered IQ test has ever been made public, there is no evidence she has ever stated one, and the "140" that circulates online appears only in unsourced listicles and memes. Her documented record is a matter of public account instead: she was the first student ever to speak at a Wellesley College commencement, in 1969, and she graduated from Yale Law School in 1973. This article explains where the fake number comes from, what the record actually shows, and why no honest estimate is possible.

The 140 has no traceable source. It appears on celebrity IQ listicles and in viral memes, none of which cites a test record, a date, an examiner, or a methodology. No primary document has ever surfaced, and there is no evidence that Hillary Clinton (or Bill Clinton) ever publicly announced a personal IQ score. A number with no provenance is not a measurement.

The template for fake political IQ lists is well documented. In 2001 a chain e-mail attributed invented presidential IQs to a "Lovenstein Institute," giving Bill Clinton a 182 and George W. Bush a 91. Snopes found that neither the institute nor the quoted researchers exist. Hillary Clinton was not even on that list, yet equally sourceless numbers now circulate for her, because once a fake-list format exists, filling in new names costs nothing.

Wellesley College's own records show that 1969 was the first year a student addressed the graduation gathering, and that student was Hillary D. Rodham. By all accounts she set aside her prepared remarks to respond to the speech Senator Edward Brooke had just given. She was one of five student commencement speakers around the country featured in a June 1969 Life magazine article called "The Class of 1969," and she returned to Wellesley as Hillary Rodham Clinton to deliver the commencement address in 1992. Some websites upgrade this to "valedictorian"; the college's own account says student commencement speaker, which is the verifiable claim.

After Wellesley she earned her law degree from Yale Law School in 1973, where she met Bill Clinton; they married in 1975. Yale Law is among the most selective law schools in the country, and graduating from it supports an inference of well above average cognitive ability. An inference of that kind is a broad bracket rather than a score.

The only peer-reviewed study that has estimated IQs for American political figures, Dean Keith Simonton's 2006 historiometric analysis, covers the 42 presidents from George Washington through George W. Bush. First ladies, senators, and secretaries of state were never estimated, so no scholarly figure of any kind exists for Hillary Clinton.

A score-based estimate is equally out of reach. Standardized tests such as the SAT correlate strongly with general cognitive ability, which is why released scores permit defensible estimates, and her SAT and LSAT results have never been made public. Comparisons with her husband are speculation in both directions: Bill Clinton's IQ is itself known only through hoaxes and academic estimates. The same evidence gap holds across modern figures, from Barack Obama to the officeholders in our review of US presidents ranked by IQ.

Unknown. She has never released an IQ score, no test record is public, and there is no evidence she ever stated one. The "140" that circulates online is an unsourced listicle number.

If she has, the result has never been made public. Educational and medical records are private, so any site claiming to know her score is guessing.

Yes. Wellesley College's records show 1969 was the first year a student addressed the graduation, and that student was Hillary D. Rodham. Her remarks landed her in a June 1969 Life magazine feature.

She graduated from Wellesley College in 1969 and Yale Law School in 1973, where she met Bill Clinton.

There is no data to answer this. Bill Clinton has only historiometric estimates from Simonton's 2006 study, Hillary Clinton has none, and no test score exists on either side, so any comparison is speculation.

Hillary Clinton's documented record supports well above average and nothing more precise, because no test score has ever been released. The "140" is folklore wearing a number. If you want to know where you actually stand, a properly normed assessment such as the Reasoning and Intelligence Online Test reports modern deviation scores with stated precision. You can start with the free IQ test from RIOT IQ.

1. Wellesley College. (n.d.). 1969 commencement. wellesley.edu

2. The White House (archived). (n.d.). William J. Clinton. bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov

3. Mikkelson, D. (2001, July 18). Presidential IQ hoax. Snopes. snopes.com

4. Simonton, D. K. (2006). Presidential IQ, openness, intellectual brilliance, and leadership: Estimates and correlations for 42 U.S. chief executives. Political Psychology, 27(4), 511-526. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2006.00524.x

5. Frey, M. C., & Detterman, D. K. (2004). Scholastic assessment or g? The relationship between the Scholastic Assessment Test and general cognitive ability. Psychological Science, 15(6), 373-378. doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00687.x