You could hang out with them on a message board for a few weeks. It's not very efficient, I know. I'm pretty sure I could put the more active users in order from smartest down and be fairly accurate, though.

I'll agree with you there; talking to someone can give you a much better understanding of someone's brain than just a test. But you'll still never know how smart someone really is. I've been going to school with this kid for four years, and thought he was an alright person, but a little dim. Suddenly he's doing well enough to skip a grade; he'll be graduating high school this year as a junior.

overacheiving does not equate to intelligence. has he gotten smart all of the sudden, or just working really hard?

I think he was quietly working hard for a long time. I talked to him almost everyday for four years and thought he was gonna have a tough time with school. And he even dropped out of the IB (International Baccalaureate) program last year to regular school. And all the sudden he beats all of us IB kids by a year.

Personally, I think the IQ or any personality test shouldn't be a be a main determinant for any job since someone with a lower IQ can easily outperform someone with a higher IQ if they know what they are doing and have common sense.

In football for example, they don't determine who is going to be on the team just from forty times or how much someone can bench, they determine that from who performs best on the field and it should be the same way for any job. Being extremely fast helps a receiver a lot but I guarantee that 7 out of 10 times, the fastest guy will not be the best just like I bet the person with the highest IQ will rarely be the best person for a job. If they are not smart enough to make the cut they will naturally be left behind just like an unathletic person will be left behind at football.

The IQ or whatever tests can be good to weed out some people but it should never have the final say.

Any monkey can graduate early from high school if they want to. The requirements are actually surprisingly low. IB is for kids who actually want to learn something above and beyond the curriculum. More likely your friend just has overpowering social issues that make him want to get out as soon as possible.

One of the classes I used to help out in for Community College was an entry class, humanities.
Occasionally I would get kids who could not read... that was one thing, but every now and again I would get those who could not communicate at all.
How those in their previous schools passed them from class to class, year to year is unconscionable.

I don't think so -- IQ isn't a really reliable predictor of success. I have a high IQ, for instance, but I suck at office work and a lot of other practical things because I don't have a lot of mental discipline, and my mind wanders.