A 1959 psychology thesis by Jame L Holleman examined the WAIS verbal IQs of 46 subjects who took the GRE at Texas Technological College during October 1958. Age range: 20 to 57; mean age: 27; mode: 22.

For unexplained reasons, two items from the WAIS Comprehension subtest were replaced with comparable items from the ancient WBI however that would have had little effect on the entire verbal IQ which is derived from all six verbal subtests.

Table III from the thesis does not report the WAIS verbal IQs of these GRE takers however it does report their WAIS sum of verbal scaled scores: mean: 76.6 (SD 9.54). For ages 20 to 24 and 25 to 34, the WAIS national standardization sample (year: 1953 – 54) had scores of 59.47 (SD 15.21) and 60.82 (SD 14.61) respectively (WAIS manual, page 19)(the figure 58.04 in table III seems to be a typo but the difference is trivial).

Thus these GRE takers had WAIS verbal IQs averaging 117 (SD 9.4) or 117 (9.79) depending which age group they fit more neatly into. Let’s split the difference and say 117 (SD 9.6). One could arguably deduct about 1 IQ point for the slightly older verbal WAIS norms (Flynn effect).

Using the logic of equipercentile equating/score pairing, we can draw some rough conclusions:

GRE verbal 458 = IQ 117 (U.S. norms) and every 105 points above or below adds or subtracts 9.6 points.

GRE combined (V + Q) = 950 = IQ 117 and every 180 points above or below adds or subtracts 9.6 points.

Prior to May 1994, Mensa accepts a combined V+Q GRE of 1250 which by my formula would equate to an IQ of 133 (very close to Mensa’s advertised cut-off of 130 especially if we shave off a few IQ points for any GRE Flynn effect from the 1958 to 1994).

From 1965 to 1989, the GRE population went from having a verbal mean of 530 (SD = 124) to 484 (SD 125) which roughly equates to going from IQ 124 (SD 11.34) to 119 (SD 11.43) so even though elite graduate schools were becoming more selective, the applicant pool from which they were selecting were getting dumber, so the average IQ of Ivy League grad students was probably not changing much.