I see people online treat IQ cutoffs like they are life defining thresholds. Someone with 130 acts like they are in a completely different category from someone with 120 and someone claiming 160 acts like they are basically a different species. But I want to know what the actual research says about what these specific scores predict and whether the gaps between them are as meaningful as the IQ obsessed corners of the internet suggest.
The differences are real but the way people talk about them online is way more dramatic than the data supports 
Here is what the numbers actually mean statistically. A score of 120 puts you around the top 9 percent of the population, which is genuinely impressive and associated with strong performance in demanding professional and academic roles. A score of 130 is the top 2 percent, the traditional giftedness threshold, and is associated with comfort at the highest levels of academic and intellectual work. A score of 160 is so rare it represents roughly 1 in 30000 people and is essentially in the range of historically documented geniuses. The practical difference between 120 and 130 is real but modest at the individual level. The difference between 130 and 160 is substantially larger because you are moving into genuinely extreme statistical territory. What the research also shows is that beyond roughly 120 the marginal returns on additional IQ points diminish for most real world outcomes. The difference between 100 and 120 predicts more variance in life outcomes than the difference between 130 and 150 
The 160 claims online are almost always fake 
Legitimate assessments rarely even report scores that high with any confidence because the norming samples at those extremes are too thin to be reliable. If someone got 160 on a free online test they got flattered, not measured