What Does a Wonderlic Score of 23 Mean?

A raw score of 23 on the Wonderlic Personnel Test puts you at the 62nd percentile — solidly above average and in range for many professional roles.

Where 23 falls on the distribution

A 23 clears the population mean by 2 points and places you in the upper half of the distribution. About 38% of test-takers scored higher. You're inside the typical range for clerical, sales, and entry-level professional hiring; closing the gap to the next bracket usually takes another 3–4 raw points of focused practice.

Roles where a 23 is competitive

Role fit: In range for skilled-trade and clerical roles: electrician, administrative assistant, receptionist.

For context: Wonderlic's published occupational data lists the average score for police officers at 22. Your 23 is 1 point above that role's average.

Many entry-level and mid-level professional positions set their cut-scores in this band. Nursing, teaching, and junior-corporate hiring frequently target candidates around this range.

What a few extra points buys you

If you went from 23 to 26 after a week or two of focused practice, your percentile would shift from 62nd to 76th — a 14-point percentile gain from a 3-point raw gain. The Wonderlic's distribution is steep through the middle, so each raw point in the 20s and 30s does meaningful percentile work.

Source: percentiles on this page are interpolated from the anchors in the official Wonderlic Personnel Test sample report (©Wonderlic Inc. 2018), which prints "Score 31 / Percentile in Total Population 94 / IQ Equivalent 121". Remaining anchors follow the commonly cited Wonderlic population norms (mean ≈ 20–21, SD ≈ 7) on the 1992 normative sample of N=118,549. Occupational averages cited above are from Wonderlic's own published occupational data.