All those presidents with Ivy League degrees
Ranking the Least Intelligent Presidents in U.S. History
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How smart are U.S. presidents?
In a 2006 study, UC Davis professor Dean Simonton used historiometric methods to estimate each president’s IQ. Simonton analyzed information from each president’s biographies, speeches and writings that would indicate intelligence.
Simonton estimated four different IQ values for each president. At InsideGov, we averaged all four IQs to get our rankings of the 25 least intelligent presidents in U.S. history. Note that President Obama was not included in the study.
With an average IQ of 128.5, these presidents are still smart, but the bar is set pretty high by the most intelligent commanders-in-chief. For reference, the average IQ for the general public is 100.
This list is by no means definitive, but it should give a general overview of each president’s relative intelligence.
See the Least Intelligent Presidents
