What Does a Wonderlic Score of 27 Mean?

A raw score of 27 puts you at the 82nd percentile — in the top quartile of Wonderlic test-takers and competitive for skilled-professional positions.

Where 27 falls on the distribution

27 puts you above 75% of all Wonderlic test-takers and comfortably above the published average for most professional roles. This is the band where employer cut-scores for professional hiring typically sit. Only about 18% of the population reaches this point.

Roles where a 27 is competitive

Role fit: In range for professional roles: nursing, teaching, sales, junior corporate positions.

For context: Wonderlic's published occupational data lists the average score for accountants at 28. Your 27 is 1 point below that role's average — closing that gap is usually achievable with one to two weeks of focused timed practice.

This is roughly the band where Wonderlic itself defines "skilled professional" performance. Most professional and managerial roles will accept scores in this band; technical roles may aim higher.

What a few extra points buys you

If you went from 27 to 30 after a week or two of focused practice, your percentile would shift from 82nd to 92nd — a 10-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.