The Tool Desk
Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Ithaca, New York, ranked first in Lumosity’s 2013 analysis of cognitive-game performance, followed by State College, Pennsylvania, and Lafayette–West Lafayette, Indiana. But the study did not measure the IQ or intelligence of every resident. It ranked the median scores of qualifying Lumosity users in U.S. statistical areas—a much narrower and historical finding.
The list was reported by VentureBeat on June 25, 2013. Because the underlying ranking used Core-Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs), many entries are metropolitan or micropolitan areas rather than incorporated cities.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
The top 10 areas
| Rank | Area | State | Overall score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ithaca | NY | 105.76 |
| 2 | State College | PA | 105.21 |
| 3 | Lafayette–West Lafayette | IN | 104.56 |
| 4 | Iowa City | IA | 104.53 |
| 5 | Ames | IA | 104.37 |
| 6 | Ann Arbor | MI | 104.28 |
| 7 | Bloomington | IN | 104.07 |
| 8 | Madison | WI | 104.05 |
| 9 | Lawrence | KS | 103.97 |
| 10 | Pullman | WA | 103.94 |
The scores came from the study’s overall normalized scale, which used a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. The white paper reports these scores for the top entries; it does not provide scores for every position in the published list.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsThe complete ranking
The following reproduces the published CBSA ranking. “City” is retained in the original names, but the geographic units often include surrounding communities connected through commuting and economic activity.
#1 Best Overall
- 399 Games Puzzles Trivia Challenges Specially Designed to Keep Your Brain Young By Linde Nancy
| Rank | Published area |
|---|---|
| 1 | Ithaca, NY |
| 2 | State College, PA |
| 3 | Lafayette-West Lafayette, IN |
| 4 | Iowa City, IA |
| 5 | Ames, IA |
| 6 | Ann Arbor, MI |
| 7 | Bloomington, IN |
| 8 | Madison, WI |
| 9 | Lawrence, KS |
| 10 | Pullman, WA |
| 11 | College Station-Bryan, TX |
| 12 | Appleton, WI |
| 13 | Champaign-Urbana, IL |
| 14 | Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford, VA |
| 15 | Charlottesville, VA |
| 16 | Boulder, CO |
| 17 | Provo-Orem, UT |
| 18 | Harrisonburg, VA |
| 19 | Rolla, MO |
| 20 | Houghton, MI |
| 21 | Muncie, IN |
| 22 | Corvallis, OR |
| 23 | Boone, NC |
| 24 | Logan, UT-ID |
| 25 | Stillwater, OK |
| 26 | Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI |
| 27 | Claremont-Lebanon, NH-VT |
| 28 | Lebanon, PA |
| 29 | Moscow, ID |
| 30 | Cedar Rapids, IA |
| 31 | Lincoln, NE |
| 32 | Bloomsburg-Berwick, PA |
| 33 | Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI |
| 34 | Starkville, MS |
| 35 | Athens, OH |
| 36 | La Crosse-Onalaska, WI-MN |
| 37 | Brainerd, MN |
| 38 | Burlington-South Burlington, VT |
| 39 | Fargo, ND-MN |
| 40 | Stevens Point, WI |
| 41 | Columbia, MO |
| 42 | St. Cloud, MN |
| 43 | Rochester, MN |
| 44 | Auburn-Opelika, AL |
| 45 | Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA |
| 46 | Oil City, PA |
| 47 | Fort Collins, CO |
| 48 | Sheboygan, WI |
| 49 | Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH |
| 50 | Keene, NH |
| 51 | Oshkosh-Neenah, WI |
| 52 | Burlington, NC |
| 53 | Pittsburgh, PA |
| 54 | Fond du Lac, WI |
| 55 | Concord, NH |
| 56 | Morgantown, WV |
| 57 | Bellingham, WA |
| 58 | Mount Pleasant, MI |
| 59 | Ottawa-Peru, IL |
| 60 | Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson, IN |
| 61 | Laramie, WY |
| 62 | Barnstable Town, MA |
| 63 | Lancaster, PA |
| 64 | Reading, PA |
| 65 | Winchester, VA-WV |
| 66 | Bozeman, MT |
| 67 | Bloomington, IL |
| 68 | Gainesville, FL |
| 69 | Duluth, MN-WI |
| 70 | Michigan City-La Porte, IN |
| 71 | South Bend-Mishawaka, IN-MI |
| 72 | Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA |
| 73 | Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA |
| 74 | Oxford, MS |
| 75 | Altoona, PA |
| 76 | Wooster, OH |
| 77 | Bismarck, ND |
| 78 | Grand Forks, ND-MN |
| 79 | Grand Rapids-Wyoming, MI |
| 80 | Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY |
| 81 | Binghamton, NY |
| 82 | Harrisburg-Carlisle, PA |
| 83 | Wisconsin Rapids-Marshfield, WI |
| 84 | Ogdensburg-Massena, NY |
| 85 | Kansas City, MO-KS |
| 86 | San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles-Arroyo Grande, CA |
| 87 | Torrington, CT |
| 88 | Trenton, NJ |
| 89 | Rochester, NY |
| 90 | Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA |
| 91 | Oneonta, NY |
| 92 | Eau Claire, WI |
| 93 | Warsaw, IN |
| 94 | Norwich-New London, CT |
| 95 | Eugene, OR |
| 96 | Topeka, KS |
| 97 | Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ |
| 98 | Mankato-North Mankato, MN |
| 99 | Helena, MT |
| 100 | Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN |
How Lumosity produced the ranking
The analysis began with 3,385,648 users. To qualify, participants had to play at least one game in each of Lumosity’s five cognitive areas, provide their date of birth and gender, and be located in the United States according to Lumosity’s geolocation process. Location was estimated using recorded IP addresses and GeoLiteCity.
The five areas were speed, attention, flexibility, memory, and problem solving. Game results were converted through an inverse percentile-rank process to a Gaussian scale with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. Scores were normalized separately by age within each game, and gender differences were statistically controlled through regression models. The overall index was then created by combining the scaled results and applying another inverse-rank normalization.
The ranking used the median overall score for users in each area, not the average. At least 500 users were required for an overall geographic ranking; 478 CBSAs met that threshold. Age-group rankings used a 200-user minimum.
Lumosity’s white paper describes qualifying users as ages 15 to 85. The VentureBeat report describes the sample as U.S. users ages 18 to 75. Those are different descriptions of the eligible age range, so neither should be silently treated as the only definition.
Why so many college towns appear near the top
The top of the list is dominated by university-centered areas: Ithaca, State College, Lafayette-West Lafayette, Iowa City, Ames, Ann Arbor, Bloomington, Madison, Lawrence, Pullman and several others. That pattern is notable, but it does not prove that universities caused higher scores.
College towns may contain unusually large concentrations of students, faculty, researchers and other highly educated residents. Their populations may also be more likely to have reliable internet access, encounter a brain-training product, or have the time and interest to complete games in all five categories. These factors can affect who appears in the dataset.
Rank #3
- 60, 000+ POSSIBILITIES IN THE BOX: STEM puzzle game with the combination of dice, location of the blockers, and set of color shapes, there are 62, 208 POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS in the 6X6 grid! Think about it… what is the possibility you will beat your opponent?
- GAME OF THE YEAR: Product Of the Year / Educational Product Of the Year / Top Toy Award Winners! Well-made table game that includes 2 grids, 7 dice, 2 sets of 7 blockers, and 2 sets of 9 colored shapes. Easy to travel with, easy to teach and learn, and simply enjoy the time! This puzzle game is SIMPLY GENIUS!
- EASY TO LEARN, BE FAST TO WIN: Promotes problem solving and motor manipulation skill training. Roll the seven dice together and place a blocker in each of the co-ordinates that appear on the faces. Now. . . RACE to fill every other space on the grid! Speed up your brain and hands! Who'll win?!
- SHARE THE JOY WITH SOMEONE, OR ENJOY ALONE: You can rack your brains against friends and family to see who fill out all the spaces first! Or you can challenge yourself against the clock! Either way… be the GENIUS one!
- FIND THAT ONE SOLUTION…OR MORE THAN ONE?: This board game is confirmed that all of arrangements have AT LEAST one possible solution for each, and maybe even more! Some are very easy, and some are much harder. Find a solution first, then challenge yourself to find another one… and… another one?
Because the result is based on the median score of qualifying users—not a representative sample of all residents—the composition of the user pool may matter as much as the characteristics of the wider area. The broader discussion of Lumosity’s web-based research also cautions that large online datasets do not automatically solve representativeness and participant-selection problems; see the 2013 Frontiers in Human Neuroscience paper.
Does this show which cities have the highest intelligence?
No—not in the broad, population-wide sense. The study measured performance on selected Lumosity exercises among people who chose to use Lumosity and met its eligibility requirements. It was not a conventional IQ survey, a census-balanced assessment, or a direct test of every resident.
The ranking therefore does not establish that:
- Ithaca residents have the highest average IQ in the United States;
- every resident of a listed area is highly intelligent;
- an area has the best schools, highest educational attainment, greatest innovation or best quality of life;
- universities caused nearby residents to score higher; or
- the findings generalize to people who did not use Lumosity.
“Smartest” was a headline label. A more precise description is the 100 highest-ranked U.S. CBSAs by median performance among qualifying Lumosity users in a 2013 game-based cognitive analysis.
Why the 2013 date matters
This is a historical ranking, not a current 2026 list. User behavior, technology access, Lumosity’s audience, statistical geography and the makeup of each area can all change over time. The results should not be presented as the latest ranking or as a permanent characteristic of any city.
The study was also company-produced: the white paper was authored by Daniel A. Sternberg of Lumos Labs/Lumosity. Commercial origin does not by itself invalidate the analysis, but it is another reason to describe the findings narrowly rather than as an independent national intelligence survey. The original methodology is available in the Lumosity white paper, and the City of Stevens Point provides a summary of the study.
What’s actually slowing this PC down?
Pick the symptom - the matching free tool is one click away.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
