Chinese Firm Drops Local IQ Standards for U.S. Hires

The U.S. has arguably been the most desirable place in the world to get a college education with international students from China, India, Japan, and others all traveling to the U.S. with that express purpose. However, there's serious signs of trouble; U.S. citizens' college graduation rates are in danger of falling behind China. Japanese enrollment is down as U.S. universities are slowly falling out of favor. And at least one executive of an Indian firm complained that American graduates were "unemployable".

Adding to the list of awkward statistics is a recent announcement by Bleum Inc., a Chinese outsourcing company. In China, with a deluge of available highly-intelligent graduates, Bleum Inc. requires that its workers score over 140 on an IQ test.

When it decided to recruit American computer science graduates, though, it decided that bar was way too high. It dropped the requirement for the Americans down to 120, a move it says reflects a lower pool of talented college grads in the U.S.

Bleum says the move is meant as no affront to the U.S. Its founder and CEO Eric Rongley is actually an American himself. He says that in China his firm gets thousands of applications a week from eager college grads. With about 1,000 employees, his firm hires less than 1 percent of those who apply. He states, "It is much harder to get into Bleum than it is to Harvard."

There is a big difference between association and causation. Active interventions in the areas you mentioned have not been shown to affect IQ. They do not even change school performance in long term measurements.

It is very politically incorrect to say but IQ is primarily determined by genetics.

But brain damage does affect IQ. I have identical twins who should have roughly the same IQ, but one is gifted with over 130 IQ and the other with 90.

Interventions have really helped my daughter. Mainly she knows skills that help her maximize the areas of her strengths. For example, she knows that writing things down helps transfer things from short term to long term memory. Her short term memory is way low and her long term is above average. Her short term memory has improved also.

Also, the way things are taught is important. My daughter has problems if school is based on just auditory means. She does poorly with lectures. She is a visual learner. She can read and understand things. She needs books. Computer lessons are great. Repetition is also good for her.

On her last Stanford Acheivement test in 7th grade, her basic battery came in at the 72% (grade equivalent of 9.6). The complete battery came in at the 65% (grade equivalent of 8.6), but that’s because it included a listening test and she was at the 35% on that.

I think that’s pretty good for a kid with an IQ of 90.

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