Which is better: a high IQ or academic success (good grades)?

I don't mean just for securing jobs or anything, but in general to society and life.

Which is better (yes I know very subjective): a very high IQ or scoring great academics (so academic intelligence)?

So a comparison may be:

1) A person with a very high IQ and thus able to answer logical, mathematical, IQ-type tests, or:

2) A person with AAA at A-level and a First Class traditional degree from a Russell Group uni, but a significantly lower IQ than the person above.

I know the two do not have to be mutually exclusive, but what do you think?

(edited 10 years ago)

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Reply 1

ckingalt

Having only those two pieces of data (academic record vs IQ). I would choose academic record every instance I can think of. Of course the evaluation is never that black and white. The truth, is that intelligence is not even in the top three of most important factors for measuring someone's potential. Intelligence just gets undue consideration because it is the easiest to recognize and measure.

The world is full of intelligent and useless people.

Reply 2

Bill_Gates

im sure those two would be highly correlated?

Reply 3

QuantumOverlord

The person to currently hold the highest documented IQ maryln vos savant is relatively unsuccessful in the scheme of things (obviously she is still very successful generally but perhaps less than you would expect for such a high intelligence) and does well mostly out of the record itself. It seems clear to me that high IQ is useful, but is dwarfed compared to other factors so long as you meet a certain benchmark (which passing a 1st year undegrad degree at a good institution you will have) particularly effort and luck. I suspect that if your IQ is superior but not genius by any means your chance of success will be roughly identical to someone with a significantly higher IQ because other factors will dominate.

You might be interested to know a study was done on the IQ of Cambridge student across different subjects. If I can recall I think the average IQ for each subject varied from ~105 to ~125, which are above average IQ scores but not exceptional.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 4

Gordon1985

Original post by QuantumOverlord

You might be interested to know a study was done on the IQ of Cambridge student across different subjects. If I can recall I think the average IQ for each subject varied from ~105 to ~125, which are above average IQ scores but not exceptional.

Of course they're not insanely good because they're averages.

A 125 IQ puts you in the top 5%. It's incredibly impressive that a group of something like 100 students in any class could have an AVERAGE of 125 IQ.

If you could have a high IQ and lower grades or lower IQ and grades, I'd most likely pick the higher IQ.

Reply 5

jalebii

2)
Hardwork over IQ anytime..

Reply 6

QuantumOverlord

Original post by Gordon1985

The 125 figure was the highest of all the populations, it is quite conceivable it was also for a small population. But even if it was not the case you would expect a distribution of population scores. Perhaps the study calculated a standard error for the entire population which may be worth checking out.

But anyway the OP was talking about someone that passed a russelgroup uni with a 1st class degree that would usually put them in the top 20% of their year at a good university so they probably have an above average IQ anyway.

IQ does correlate with success this is undeniable, however at the high end the correlation is significantly weaker and other factors will start to come into play. What is important to note, is that a lazy person with a high IQ will have a significantly reduced chance of success compared to a motivated person with a slightly lower intelligence.

Reply 7

ckingalt

Original post by QuantumOverlord

luck.

Replace the underlined above with adaptability and you are dead on. Contributing to luck as a factor is usually an attempt to dismiss credit for success and absolve accountability for failure.

Reply 8

TimmonaPortella

Original post by QuantumOverlord

Do you know where this can be found?

Reply 9

QuantumOverlord

Original post by ckingalt

Replace the underlined above with adaptability and you are dead on. Contributing to luck as a factor is usually an attempt to dismiss credit for success and absolve accountability for failure.

Indeed dishonest people might call 'coincidence' or 'luck' in that way. But this does not mean luck doesn't play an important role. It does. Ultimately people you meet, opportunities that you happen to come across e.c.t will influence your future success and often people that make it big get a lucky break (this is particularly prevalent in things like acting). You are right that this should not be used as an excuse for effort lacking or to dismiss achievement and I am not suggesting that but it nevertheless does play a role. If you think about it IQ itself is 'luck' in a way, it certainly is outside our control, and we could rightly say those that are born geniuses have an unfair advantage over those that arn't.

Reply 10

QuantumOverlord

Original post by TimmonaPortella

Do you know where this can be found?

The study was an old one published in 1967 in nature. Also the students were doctoral (I missed that).

http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/grady/emptypromise.html

A summary of results are here. BUT note the tests here use a 20SD scale rather than a 15SD so to get the usual IQ you will have to make a correction (Original score - 100)*3/4 + 100

So a score of 126 would result in an IQ on the more usually accepted 15SD scale of only 119.5.

Reply 11

Gordon1985

Original post by QuantumOverlord

IQ does correlate with success this is undeniable, however at the high end the correlation is significantly weaker and other factors will start to come into play. What is important to note, is that a lazy person with a high IQ will have a significantly reduced chance of success compared to a motivated person with a slightly lower intelligence.

I agree. At the start of uni me and my friends put people into 4 categories.

1 - Very smart, very hard working
2 - Not that smart, very hard working
3 - Very smart, not hard working
4 - Not that smart, not hard working

Whilst 1s are clearly the best, a 2 will beat a 3 most of the time, easily.

Reply 12

Farm_Ecology

Academic Success.

Academic Success demonstrates an ability to work well within the framework of our society. Someone who gets high grades throughout their life is likely to be adept at learning new material, following instructions and will probably have a good memory.

Success in IQ tests represents a narrow ability, and does not guarantee or even imply the ability to contribute to society. Just taking a look at some of the people with the highest IQ shows a great deal of one-hit-wonders.

Reply 13

DudeBoy

Original post by Bill_Gates

im sure those two would be highly correlated?

Nope

Reply 14

KD35

Your academic record has a better chance of getting you a job than just stating your IQ to employers.

Reply 15

iggyDash

Hard work beats talent.

Reply 16

nexttime

I'm not sure you can just separate 'securing jobs' and 'general society and life' - the former forms a huge part of the latter, as much as we'd like to think otherwise!

Academic success.

Original post by DudeBoy

Nope

There is a huge correlation between IQ and academic success, what are you talking about?

Academic success (the same goes for career success) requires quite a few attributes, intelligence is one one of them. If you have a high intelligence, you're better placed for academic success.