New Jersey is in the top ten of smartest states in the U.S.

I suppose people in every state like to think that their state is full of smart people, but, sadly, most of them are wrong. Here in New Jersey, however, we can rightly claim that we are in the upper echelon of intelligence; well, at least according to one study, anyway.

A gambling website called PennStakes, crunched the numbers to arrive at what states were overall the smartest. To do that, they created an index:

With a weighted score out of 30:

• The percentage of population with an ‘Advanced Degree’, with data collected from United States Census Bureau.

With a weighted score out of 20:

• The percentage of population with a ‘Bachelor’s Degree’, with data collected from United States Census Bureau.
• Average IQ scores, with data collected from Pesta (2022).

The combined score for both factors is out of 40.

With a weighted score out of 10:

• The percentage of population with an ‘High School Diploma’, with data collected from United States Census Bureau.
• Mean SAT score, with data collected from Scholarship Institute.
• Average ACT score, with data collected from Test Geek.

The combined score for all three is out of 30.

Finally, they combined the weighted scores of each factor for each state to provide a final index score out of 100. The higher the score, the smarter the state.

So, enough with the explanation, where did New Jersey rank?

New Jersey was deemed to be the 7th smartest state (final score of 69.5).

All of the top seven are on the East Coast; number one is Massachusetts, I guess having Harvard probably helps. The next five are Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

Of course, there had to be states who ranked at the bottom of the survey; at #46 was Nevada, followed by Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and, in last place: West Virginia.

Next time you get exasperated by all the idiots surrounding you in New Jersey, remember, it could be worse: you could live in West Virginia.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Doyle only.

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