Graduations for the class of 2022 have come and gone. High school seniors have made their college plans and others are starting their careers. Does being from a certain state give you an advantage? Obviously, the quality of the school system where you live is going to have an impact. But are certain states smarter than others? Well, PennStakes.com thinks so. They recently conducted research to find out what are the smartest states and South Carolina, well this one wasn’t for you!
Some of these rankings do line up with America’s top universities, but not all. And are schools like Harvard and Yale a fair representation of the entire state? How could they be when these schools are so exclusive. But gosh, it’s hard to believe that in the bottom 5th of all the smartest states is where you find South Carolina.
So where did these rankings come from? PennStakes analyzed several key metrics including IQ scores, SAT scores, and more to create these rankings. You can see the full methodology at the end of this article.
50. West Virginia
Total Score: 12.6
49. Mississippi
Total Score: 13.3
48. Louisiana
Total Score: 15.2
47. Arkansas
Total Score: 19.1
46. Nevada
Total Score: 20.0
45. New Mexico
Total Score: 20.4
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA downtown cityscape and street at twilight.
44. Alabama
Total Score: 22.4
43. Oklahoma
Total Score: 22.4
42. Texas
Total Score: 23.9
41. South Carolina
Total Score: 28.0
White more than double the bottom two on this list, SC did still sore a dismal 28.0. In contrast the “smartest” state on this list scored a 93.9.
40. Kentucky
Total Score: 30.5
39. Florida
Total Score: 32.4
38. Tennessee
Total Score: 34.2
37. Arizona
Total Score: 35.9
36. Idaho
Total Score: 36.5
15. Nebraska
Total Score: 52.5
14. Kansas
Total Score: 53.3
13. Utah
Total Score: 55.5
12. Maine
Total Score: 55.8
11. New York
Total Score: 57.8
10. Washington
Total Score: 60.3
9. Minnesota
Total Score: 67.0
8. Colorado
Total Score: 69.4
7. New Jersey
Total Score: 69.5
6. New Hampshire
Total Score: 70.5
5. Vermont
Total Score: 72.2
4. Virginia
Total Score: 72.5
3. Maryland
Total Score: 72.8
2. Connecticut
Total Score: 73.8
1. Massachusetts
Total Score: 93.9
Massachusetts decidedly takes the win, with a score a full 20 points higher than the 2nd place state.
