A reader sends along this table from the Graduate Record Exam from ETS giving average scores by intended field of study in grad school. He includes an estimate of IQ from one of the popular conversion tables, although he didn't tell me which one.
One problem I saw was that the mean score for the Quantitative section is so much higher than for the Verbal section, and the standard deviation is also larger for Quant, that the combined scores were biased in favor of highly quantitative fields. So, I added three more columns on the right that show difference fro the mean in standard deviations and just take the average for verbal and quantitative compared to their separate means. That seems fair, since there's no evidence that verbal intelligence correlates lower with general intelligence, and it may well be the best surrogate for the g factor. So, that's how I sorted it, which moves philosophy up into second place behind physics.
That reminds me of how I wrote a review of a book by David Stove in 1999 making gentle fun of philosophy (well, maybe not that gentle: I referred to the "uselessness of philosophy"). I received a number of superbly articulate and intensely argued emails telling me I didn't know what I was talking about. You'll notice I've drawn in my horns on this topic ever since!
This table may not be fair to business students since perhaps the better ones tend to take the GMAT to apply to MBA schools.
| Graduate Record Examination Scores | | | | | | ||
| Mean | 465 | 584 | | | | | |
| Standard Deviation | 117 | 149 | | | | | |
| | Verbal | Quant | Sum | IQ | Verbal SD | Quant SD | Avg. SD |
| Physics & astronomy | 533 | 736 | 1269 | 133 | 0.58 | 1.02 | 0.80 |
| Philosophy | 590 | 638 | 1228 | 129 | 1.07 | 0.36 | 0.72 |
| Mathematical Sciences | 502 | 733 | 1235 | 130 | 0.32 | 1.00 | 0.66 |
| Materials Engineering | 494 | 727 | 1221 | 129 | 0.25 | 0.96 | 0.60 |
| Economics | 503 | 706 | 1209 | 128 | 0.32 | 0.82 | 0.57 |
| Chemical Engineering | 485 | 726 | 1211 | 128 | 0.17 | 0.95 | 0.56 |
| Other Engineering | 493 | 714 | 1207 | 128 | 0.24 | 0.87 | 0.56 |
| Mechanical Engineering | 469 | 724 | 1193 | 126 | 0.03 | 0.94 | 0.49 |
| Other Humanities & Art | 563 | 599 | 1162 | 124 | 0.84 | 0.10 | 0.47 |
| Physical Sciences | 486 | 697 | 1183 | 125 | 0.18 | 0.76 | 0.47 |
| Engineering | 468 | 719 | 1187 | 126 | 0.03 | 0.91 | 0.47 |
| Electrical Eng | 459 | 726 | 1185 | 126 | (0.05) | 0.95 | 0.45 |
| Banking & finance | 467 | 711 | 1178 | 125 | 0.02 | 0.85 | 0.43 |
| Chemistry | 486 | 680 | 1166 | 124 | 0.18 | 0.64 | 0.41 |
| Computer & Infor Sci | 466 | 701 | 1167 | 124 | 0.01 | 0.79 | 0.40 |
| Civil Engineering | 457 | 700 | 1157 | 124 | (0.07) | 0.78 | 0.36 |
| Religion & Theory | 541 | 589 | 1130 | 121 | 0.65 | 0.03 | 0.34 |
| Industrial Engineering | 440 | 707 | 1147 | 123 | (0.21) | 0.83 | 0.31 |
| Earth, Atmos & Mar. Sci | 495 | 636 | 1131 | 121 | 0.26 | 0.35 | 0.30 |
| English language & lit | 560 | 553 | 1113 | 120 | 0.81 | (0.21) | 0.30 |
| Humanities & arts | 545 | 566 | 1111 | 120 | 0.68 | (0.12) | 0.28 |
| Arts-History, theory, crit | 539 | 572 | 1111 | 120 | 0.63 | (0.08) | 0.28 |
| Biological Sciences | 491 | 631 | 1122 | 121 | 0.22 | 0.32 | 0.27 |
| Political Science | 524 | 588 | 1112 | 120 | 0.50 | 0.03 | 0.27 |
| Foreign languages & lit | 531 | 574 | 1105 | 119 | 0.56 | (0.07) | 0.25 |
| Anthropology & Archeology | 533 | 569 | 1102 | 119 | 0.58 | (0.10) | 0.24 |
| History | 542 | 557 | 1099 | 119 | 0.66 | (0.18) | 0.24 |
| Library & Archival Sciences | 536 | 542 | 1078 | 117 | 0.61 | (0.28) | 0.16 |
| Architecture | 475 | 610 | 1085 | 118 | 0.09 | 0.17 | 0.13 |
| Natural Sciences -Other | 474 | 598 | 1072 | 117 | 0.08 | 0.09 | 0.09 |
| Secondary | 485 | 578 | 1063 | 116 | 0.17 | (0.04) | 0.07 |
| Social Sciences | 487 | 565 | 1052 | 115 | 0.19 | (0.13) | 0.03 |
| Agriculture | 458 | 592 | 1050 | 115 | (0.06) | 0.05 | 0.00 |
| Arts-Performance & studio | 488 | 553 | 1041 | 114 | 0.20 | (0.21) | -0.01 |
| Life Sciences | 462 | 581 | 1043 | 114 | (0.03) | (0.02) | -0.02 |
| Sociology | 488 | 545 | 1033 | 114 | 0.20 | (0.26) | -0.03 |
| Other business | 444 | 599 | 1043 | 114 | (0.18) | 0.10 | -0.04 |
| Business | 442 | 592 | 1034 | 114 | (0.20) | 0.05 | -0.07 |
| Psychology | 472 | 545 | 1017 | 113 | 0.06 | (0.26) | -0.10 |
| Higher | 464 | 548 | 1012 | 112 | (0.01) | (0.24) | -0.13 |
| Communications | 470 | 533 | 1003 | 111 | 0.04 | (0.34) | -0.15 |
| Curriculum & Instruction | 459 | 546 | 1005 | 111 | (0.05) | (0.26) | -0.15 |
| Health & medical sciences | 447 | 552 | 999 | 111 | (0.15) | (0.21) | -0.18 |
| Other social Science | 465 | 527 | 992 | 110 | 0.00 | (0.38) | -0.19 |
| Business admin & mgmt. | 438 | 561 | 999 | 111 | (0.23) | (0.15) | -0.19 |
| Education | 449 | 534 | 983 | 110 | (0.14) | (0.34) | -0.24 |
| Accounting | 408 | 585 | 993 | 110 | (0.49) | 0.01 | -0.24 |
| Evaluation & Research | 450 | 530 | 980 | 109 | (0.13) | (0.36) | -0.25 |
| Public Administration | 453 | 515 | 968 | 109 | (0.10) | (0.46) | -0.28 |
| Other Education | 439 | 532 | 971 | 109 | (0.22) | (0.35) | -0.29 |
| Elementary | 442 | 526 | 968 | 108 | (0.20) | (0.39) | -0.29 |
| Administration | 426 | 522 | 948 | 107 | (0.33) | (0.42) | -0.37 |
| Home Economics | 435 | 501 | 936 | 106 | (0.26) | (0.56) | -0.41 |
| Special | 431 | 502 | 933 | 106 | (0.29) | (0.55) | -0.42 |
| Student Counseling | 427 | 500 | 927 | 105 | (0.32) | (0.56) | -0.44 |
| Early Childhood | 418 | 497 | 915 | 104 | (0.40) | (0.58) | -0.49 |
| Social Work | 428 | 466 | 894 | 103 | (0.32) | (0.79) | -0.55 |
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