The average IQ of a college graduate is 102.

Which is why you'll never get a true whiz like Google or Microsoft..

How do you trim the pile? On LinkedIn, there are fields for several things, not just a degree. Skills, years experience, recommendations from people they've worked with. People can easily beat some of your filters if you automatically exclude people who don't have a degree. That filter will exclude the whiz kid who doesn't have a degree but published several popular github repositories to use a software engineering example.

You have to make time to interview people and the degree filter will exclude a lot of excellent developers.

Software development is a unique case though since you don't need college to gain experience and mastery at solving programming problems. You get an API and find a problem to solve, create a new app to entertain people, or anything that suits your creativity.

Traditional STEM's though would require a degree since it would be almost impossible to verify someone's experience in a lab based on their word alone. There are a few prodigies out there but it's a lot harder to get noticed for engineering or chemistry achievements outside of college than it is for creating popular software. It's easy to get feedback and see your results almost immediately. And it's cheap. Chemistry and engineering projects outside of university setting are not cheap so cost is a big limiting factor.

So a college degree makes sense for some professions but isn't a requirement for all professions that have a university degree backing them. Software engineering is one such example.

Mine is 190, so obviously I bring the average up.

I don't think it still exists, but once upon a time the University of Hartford had a College of Basic Studies which was a sort of remedial program, as I understood it. Abbreviated "CBS", some folks got creative and came up with other things CBS stood for at the school:

Children Born Stupid

Coloring Book School

Coulda Been Somebody

IQ tests are infrequently given. As another poster said, usually IQ tests are given more when something is wrong than right. In the early days, IQ tests were narrow in scope and poorly normed. There were also significant biases present with respect to gender and race.

The article does not state how they obtained the IQ scores since it was an analysis of the data rather than an experiment it is difficult to take a lot away from this. Overall, we really cannot attribute much to past IQ scores.

A note on IQ tests. Most look more at the innate processes that will produce successful completion of tasks. A person may have well developed processing speed or working memory but poorly developed verbal comprehension. It does not mean they are dumb, but they most likely cannot express themselves very well or lacks background knowledge to apply some of their skills. Therefore, their area of weakness is still relevant and cannot be cast aside by saying "you can be intelligent in many different ways, IQ tests only measure A." A person may know how to fix an engine but not know how to explain it. If they are trying to talk to a customer or train someone it can still be impactful.

Sorry, where in the article does it say anything about those that have graduated college? This analyzed those currently enrolled….

I meant this article that just came out that’s probably being referenced….

bigthink.com

Undergraduates' average IQ has fallen 17 points since 1939. Here's why.

A new analysis shows that undergraduates' IQs have decreased over the past four decades as attending college has grown more common.

Link:bigthink.com/thinking/iq-score-average...

They are degree factories nowadays. The education industrial complex has diluted the value of an education. The acceptance rate at many schools is over 90%.

Look at a company like Citadel or Jane Street. Even though wokeism caused IQ tests to be illegal to use to make hiring decisions, their testing process, then their interview process, combined with the resume review serves to screen for IQ very well. I mean, come on - do you think the 4.95 GPA double physics / math major from MIT (5.0 scale) is smarter than the 3.7 GPA from a random college?

I represent this statement.

first off, CS is a known exception to needing college.

second off, linkedin? are we seriously suggesting we take the word of people on the skills list they put on linkedin? whole point is some sort of "teeth" in the question of whether they know anything or have competence. somebody besides them saying in a definitive way that x person has y skill. in the order of what a sane person would trust, completing school/trade school, a certification, having taken a class in a competence, or being given a test at the interview.

last thing i am trusting is someone running their mouth.

it sounds cute to say widely interview but 1000 interviews lasting a half hour for an eight hour work day, 16 interviews a day, is 60-odd days. the employees doing that interview couldn't do their normal work. 100 interviews is more than a week. that's not even considering the prep work to do more than just read their resume while you speak to them. which IMO is as long or longer than the interview. you have to take some time to see gaps, contradictions, positives, concerns. i personally would rather have

this isn't an exercise in giving everyone their chance. your chance is at the resume and application packet stage. this is, let me review the application and pick a short list with the best candidates to bring in person. efficient use of time. you need to stand out on paper or have a great portfolio or otherwise immediately grab me. linkedin skills don't stand out. i have worked in the field decades does. i have held advanced positions does. i went to x school does. i made y gpa does. ii have been certified by someone other than myself does. i can program in x y z does, ideally confirmed by a third party and not just say-so. some of those items are workforce. some of those items are trade school. some of those items are higher education. i am disinterested in a process that waters down everyone to seem alike. i want to know who is smarter, more diligent, and more informed and effective in the field. whether you like it or not, higher education hints that someone (depending where they went), will have some snap, shows up every day, and will possess a level of knowledge in the field. particular schools will have a different vibe and history of success. some schools may be out of touch or too loose on who gets in. some may be impractical. but my experience there are usually a set of schools that produced informed candidates who can do their job fairly good out of the box. i can then train them. and in my experience a smart kid once internally well trained will run circles around their autodidact peers.

we do not have the time to make the sole point of our working existence for a week or weeks, interviewing. i want the interviewer back to work soon and producing work or making money again. and i don't want some HR generalist asking questions and deciding. i want experts deciding who their new coworker is. so a day or two, well prepared for each candidate showing up where i know their resume as well as they do. not improvising where i miss a detail or get suckered.

College is not for everyone. We need HVAC, retail, plumbing, elevator repair, welding, paralegal... Not everyone can get to a tenth grade reading level. Not everyone can become a surgeon. That's life. I'm color blind, I can't become a cop or a pilot, as it would put lives in jeopardy. We are not all the same.

There's a typo in your response. Take the "1" out.

This is very true. I think people who say anyone can do anything if they just try have never been in classes that were actually challenging. Calc I is a class that is required for a wide variety of majors, and it is VERY common for students to struggle mightily in it even after failing it the first time around and taking it again. And the fact is, Calc I is child's play compared to even senior level math, physics, and engineering classes, let alone graduate level classes in those subjects.

Unless you're in a professional field that requires this knowledge for a licensing exam, if you just need a pass in the course, there's probably online courses in these difficult subjects that could be gamed.

Fine. But there is no reason not to educate people that want to be educated. You can well argue that a IQ95 person should get MORE education than an IQ105 person. Since the 95 needs it more. There also should be readily available college based training for things like HVAC. A 95 IQ person should be able to go to college for a couple of years and come out an expert in HVAC or electric, or masonry rather than getting roped into union affiliated training program that maybe they don't want to be in.

What it shows is the result of a "meta-analysis" done by a Canadian university--of a dubious measuring instrument. I hope our Canadian friends didnt have to pay for that bit of busywork! I wouldnt rely on that for anything other than a blink, guffaw, or "check this out!" moment.

Today, graduating from university is more common than completing high school in the 1940s. Now everyone is expected to attend college and it’s become a lot easier to be admitted.

Upper level classes can be difficult at times and obviously those that get there have passed the "hard" prereqs but at my university, Calc 2 and DiffEq are the notorious classes. Calc 3 is not so bad but harder than Calc 1.

Youll be pleased to know the Google "celebrity facts" scroll has you at the same IQ as Kim Kardashian--yep: 190.They haveTrump at 145 and Biden at 105.

I submit that reports of I Q scores, unreliable even in their most pristine state, are not the most compelling indcator of intelligence. Except for yours of course!