<p>This a NOT intended to be political, I hope the thread it doesn’t take a wrong turn …</p>
<p>Who was the most academically talented US President ever? Are there any of them who could have happily published their college transcript and shown straight 'A’s?</p>
<p>Woodrow Wilson.</p>
<p>J Q Adams</p>
<p>Truman was responsible for saving more lives during the famine in USSR. 50,000 peploe dying per day.I guess social smarts, if not IQ</p>
<p>Terrribly enbarrassing that Obama wasn’t briefed on protocol with Queen. I thought every Pres given asocial director</p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson, most definitely. Woodrow Wilson does deserve an honorable mention, for being the only president so far to hold a PhD.</p>
<p>However, as an academic, a philosopher, and a writer, Jefferson stands clear. Not “social smarts,” nor “street smarts,” nor “smartest decisions in a partisan mind,” but academic/philosophical intellect. He wrote the Declaration (I much prefer his first draft to the one Congress butchered), was a student and great thinker of Enlightenment ideas, founded UVa, and his library started the Library of Congress.</p>
<p>“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”</p>
<p>-John Kennedy, speaking to an assembly of Nobel Prize winners.</p>
<p>Abraham Lincoln</p>
<p>The speeches he wrote are immortal, classics. And that was back when presidents wrote their speeches themselves.</p>
<p>(Actually I think presidential writings were once analyzed as an indicator of IQ and Lincoln came out on top).</p>
<p>According to one list I found on-line, (not the hoax that said Democrats had high IQ’s and Republicans low!) here are the presidents that had high IQ’s (or estimated IQ’s) of 156-137
–from the top: Carter, JQ Adams, FDR, Nixon, Jefferson, Clinton, John Adams.</p>
<p>Mentioned as “not so bright” in no particular order are: Harding, Reagan, Grant, Kennedy, Washington, and George H.W. Bush</p>
<p>George W. Bush’s recentered SAT score was reported as 640V 640M</p>
<p>Straight As are not indication of being “brainy”, IMO. More so, “brainy Pres.”.
Straignt As require hard working ethic, not brilliant brain (again IMO, based on my life experience, which is different from person to person). According to lists provided by others posters, I am correct.</p>
<p>I’m not surprised that Harding is near the bottom. I think Jefferson or Wilson would be near the top, as would Lincoln – even without having specific info like test scores and grades those men are well-renowned for their intellectual traits (especially Wilson and Jefferson).</p>
<p>i always thought it noteworthy that Carter had a degree in nuclear engineering from the naval academy. Certainly an intelligent man. Good leader? Well, only history will tell. Certainly not the best speaker, I guess.</p>
<p>Clinton was amazing to listen to. He could out-wonk any wonk. I think that’s a form of brilliance. </p>
<p>Any list claiming Reagan was not intelligent is not an intelligent list. We’re still waiting for a president that united the country and led it forward with vigor as he did. </p>
<p>Lincoln was surely brilliant. Doubt if he had speechwriters. And wasn’t he self-taught for law?</p>
<p>I also thought Kennedy was a fine writer – if he actually wrote his stuff. Same for Obama.</p>
<p>Some would say Nixon was too smart for his own good.</p>
<p>Lincoln did write his own speeches. (You can see the many drafts he wrote of the Gettysburg Address and his inaugural speeches in his own handwriting). Modern presidents do not. Kennedy’s speeches were written by Sorenson.</p>
<p>There’s ‘book smarts’ and then there’s the smarts to understand your country, the times and the nature of its people. Some ‘book smart’ presidents didn’t understand their fellow citizens. Some not so book smart presidents did.</p>
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<p>Jimmy Carter was smart but he graduated 59th out of a class of 820 at the Naval Academy - good but not the straight-A student the OP is looking for.</p>
<p>Kennedy was witty and very well-read. His senior thesis at Harvard, which was NOT written by a speech writer (Harvard still has the first draft - hand-written in JFK’s own hand), was published in book form and became a best-seller. He probably could have had a successful literary career had he not gone into politics. Certainly talented, but again, he probably was not a straight-A student.</p>
<p>Jefferson certainly was a philospher, political theorist, and visionary, although some of his visions for the future of the US turned out to be absurd. In any case it’s too hard to assess academic talent across widely-different eras to make a direct comparison between modern presidents and the presidents of 200 years ago.</p>
<p>If I had to go with anyone I’d pick Woodrow Wilson. He was, in fact, a true scholar. Probably a better scholar than he was a president.</p>
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<p>Yes the poor man pronounces “nuclear” as “nu-cu-ler”. How did that happen?</p>
<p>What rise1916 said:</p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson</p>
<p>I thought of that Kennedy quote right away.</p>
<p>Its the official southern pronunciation. Why do people get so upset over that word? Nucular rolls of the tongue much better that the uptight sounding nuclear.</p>
<p>Without being political . . . anyone who knows anything about Harvard Law School and the Harvard Law Review knows that “President of the Harvard Law Review” is about as strong a credential as there is for sheer braininess. (Or, more precisely, for sheer braininess combined with not being a space cadet.) Not everyone on the Harvard Law Review is a genius, but none of them is less than very smart, and many of them more than that. And their presidential selection process is designed NOT to be a popularity contest.</p>
<p>That’s not to say that braininess makes a great President. I think graduating from Annapolis as a nuclear engineer is a pretty good indicator for pure intelligence, and no one would list Jimmy Carter as one of our greatest Presidents. And Herbert Hoover – fluent in Mandarin, author of what was once a standard textbook on mining, translator (from late Latin) of a Renaissance metallurgy text.</p>
<p>So, anyway, Jefferson, Lincoln, both Adamses . . . and Wilson, Hoover, Carter, and Obama.</p>
<p>I don’t think we should be using SAT scores as any kind of indication - especially for anyone older than - say - 40 years old.</p>
<p>Those of use who are over 40 mostly all took the SAT one time, we didn’t study for it, we didn’t take prep classes, we didn’t super-score it, and we didn’t also take the ACT to see if we did better on THAT test. We’d get up on a Saturday morning after - what? - a football game or party the night before - and take the test under whatever conditions we happened to be under that day. </p>
<p>When I was in high school in the 70s, any SAT score over 1000 was considered a good score. Now, we look at a 1000 as - well, there’s always community college. A 1300 was considered “brainy”.</p>
<p>*Yes the poor man pronounces “nuclear” as “nu-cu-ler”. How did that happen? *</p>
<p>The same way that educated people from the NE pronounce “idea” as “idear”…and they think that there’s an “r” in the word “wash”!!!</p>
<p>*Clinton was amazing to listen to. He could out-wonk any wonk. I think that’s a form of brilliance. *</p>
<p>Clinton was known to be a “quick study”. That’s a gift and form of intelligence.</p>
<p>*Any list claiming Reagan was not intelligent is not an intelligent list. *</p>
<p>I agree.</p>
<p>
Around half the people here will agree with you, half will disagree. Reagan is still very partisan, as are most presidents since (and often including) Kennedy. The ones before seem to have passed into the realm of being merely “Presidents,” where most people can honestly analyze the good and the bad without making it partisan.</p>
<p>For example, I could both commend Eisenhower on his tax rates and criticize his actions that directly led to the Vietnam War (built upon by the next three presidents), without once thinking of his political party.</p>
<p>So when someone says Obama or Clinton or Reagan or (to some degree) Kennedy, there are people who won’t even consider it for the little “R” or “D” next to their names and the things their favorite political pundits or news channels spew.</p>
<p>What, no mention of Teddy Roosevelt?</p>
<p>And what about Jed Bartlet? </p>
<p>(Immersed in WW DVDs these days - couldn’t resist.)</p>
<p>I would rate Carter as high average, not brilliant. Nuclear engineering is not all that difficult.</p>
<p>According to Walter Cronkite, who met several Presidents during his career, Jimmy Carter was the smartest of them all.</p>
<p>[Cronkite:</a> Jimmy Carter 'Smartest President'](<a href=“http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/cronkite-carter-smartest-/2009/07/22/id/331778]Cronkite:”>http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/cronkite-carter-smartest-/2009/07/22/id/331778)</p>