High IQ question.

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I politely disagree. I have classmates who have represented my country in international high school math/physics/computer science olympics in my university, and guess what...they all have high grades. Also, if you are truly intelligent, you don't even need to study to get good grades in a regular high school, they just come naturally from cramming for exams literally the day before the exams. I am not even that smart compared to some crazy smart people in my universities, yet I can just study the day before the exams and still manage to get good marks into my good university. Yes there are many university dropouts who are very successful, but they have successfully gotten into their universities in the first place and can finish their degrees if they want to. I mean sure if someone chooses not to pursue education after they already have a great plan in mind that is one thing, but failing high school even if the person is not really trying just tells me that the said person is not really intelligent unless they have extreme circumstances like major depression. Furthermore, CEOs and startup founders actually don't need as high an IQ as people in academia in my opinions. You can disagree of course, I have had one professor who has won gold medal at the international high school math olympic at age 15 but it is easy to tell that he would not make a good CEO.

And to get high grades in those said important classes, you just need to be smart, and it is a pure test of intelligence.

I politely disagree. I have classmates who have represented my country in international high school math/physics/computer science olympics in my university, and guess what...they all have high grades. Also, if you are truly intelligent, you don't even need to study to get good grades in a regular high school, they just come naturally from cramming for exams literally the day before the exams. I am not even that smart compared to some crazy smart people in my universities, yet I can just study the day before the exams and still manage to get good marks into my good university. Yes there are many university dropouts who are very successful, but they have successfully gotten into their universities in the first place and can finish their degrees if they want to. I mean sure if someone chooses not to pursue education after they already have a great plan in mind that is one thing, but failing high school even if the person is not really trying just tells me that the said person is not really intelligent unless they have extreme circumstances like major depression. Furthermore, CEOs and startup founders actually don't need as high an IQ as people in academia in my opinions. You can disagree of course, I have had one professor who has won gold medal at the international high school math olympic at age 15 but it is easy to tell that he would not make a good CEO.

It is not a test of pure intelligence. If that were the case, any sufficiently smart person could join the class and do well, regardless of background. It's called "graduate school" for a reason: one needs undergraduate preparation in addition to cognitive skills.

Well, please pardon my cynicism, and good luck. We have lived in different circles, but myself and others feel disaffected by all the phonies around Academia. They almost destroyed Robert Persig, and Feynman busted all of Brazil for not actually teaching physics, just memory work. When I was in school, it took a lot more than cramming to get good grades. If I'd studied Architecture, they would have taught me to use central air conditioning and just let the electric heat come on on the shady side of a building. I wasn't going to pay for that even with the old government guaranteed loans on low tuition. Since then I've watched Sociobiology get shut down by campus politics. This week, the Universities of Saskatchewan announced a million dollar study into small nuclear reactors, starting with a thoroughly disproved premise. The math savants get syphoned off to analyse stocks, and the biologists learn to fake drug studies.

Again I respectfully disagree. There may be some phoines in Academia, but I can assure you that math/science professors in good universities are generally very good and smart people. The ones I have met are often honest to a fault and very morally upright. There may be exceptions, but those are exceptions.

Also to clarify: what I have said about getting good grades by just being smart only applies in high school, in universities it is of course a different story. But an inability to get good grades in math/science through cramming in high school just shows the person is not super intelligent to me.

However, to me an inability to get all As in high school can easily coexist with high intelligence. One may simply not see any reason to learn various subjects, or already have a more advanced understanding of them. Grades depend on memory work, which is just a very narrow part of intelligence.

I'm sure there are some smart people in academia, and I hope you have found yourself among them. However, to me an inability to get all As in high school can easily coexist with high intelligence. One may simply not see any reason to learn various subjects, or already have a more advanced understanding of them. Grades depend on memory work, which is just a very narrow part of intelligence. Successful original research, not just getting a "me too" paper published, is my yardstick.