So if a person falls within the average range of IQ, would they still be able to excel in higher level positions or would he or she be setting himself or herself up for failure?
So while IQ tests are normally distributed, the impact on "competence" is not as simple or direct.
First, there are thresholds and within the thresholds, sub-thresholds. For instance, being about 1 SD above norm is a pretty strong threshold for PhDs (excluding MDs). However, to get a PhD in theoretical physics, you are going to find a distribution centered just short of 3 SDs (IIRC, it was 142). MDs are the one exception to these rules, averaging much lower but having a huge range. Not sure about psychiatrists however, but I know psychology is not a high threshold area. Keep in mind that the thresholds are pretty broad these days anyway. The average person can get a university degree without any issue... and most masters are the same. (See also Rasofy's chart to get an idea of the ranges! They are generally huge.)
Second, exceling is about being good in a particular niche. Here you get two sets of metrics: performance compared to others and how effective (objectively) you are. For instance, a restaurant server with a higher IQ should have a higher working memory. Servers with higher working memory can deal with more demands, not just on remembering orders, but the processing/timing/deviation/routing demands for them. However, there is a limit to this (like most network-like problems, they increase exponentially or quadratically). So the effective difference between an average person (IQ:100) and slightly above average (IQ:110) is smaller than the average person and slightly below average (IQ:90). A completely made up thought concept - imagine that the number of people's orders you can remember is the sq of the percentile group you are in (eg: bottom 1% = 1 person's order, while average 50% is 7. Being the best, 100%, is only 10).
Third, other attributes will wash out IQ because of those diminishing returns (and the interactive effect of people selecting areas where their IQ is ~average). It's very noticeable within narrow categories (eg: PhDs). Those PhDs' successes will be largely derived from hard work and networking but that's only because they have already been selected by basic ability (threshold effect). Likewise, an average server would likely struggle in the same theoretical PhD pursuit, while the theoretical PhD probably wouldn't perform significantly better at being a server anyway.
Put that together and what you can generally say is... A person will struggle when a person exceeds their threshold. A person who is within their threshold tends to excel based upon other factors. And finally, a high IQ person is unlikely to excel simply because their IQ; but they are likely to be in an increasingly smaller group that forms specific to their ability to jump.
None of this should discourage you, however. It's just a comment on the interactions. I mean, if you took an entire battery of tests and they showed you would struggle, then I might say you should consider if the effort is worth it. That's not the case and even if it was, the question is if you want to struggle with it, not if you could/could not do it. Doing it is its own reward anyway, if you truly are interested.
Keep in mind that one of the major motivations for getting a PhD has to do with social status rather than intrinsic value and this probably includes you as well. Do you want to excel: be better than others, or excel: be good at what you do, or excel: be able to do it/not frustrated. They are very different answers, not to mention where your expectation sit between "piece of paper" or "world's leader".
Seems like [MENTION=88]ptgatsby[/MENTION] had some stats on things along these lines years ago... but I may be wrong.
Long ago, hah hah. It's generally true that it becomes harder to relate because the pool of relatable people grows smaller. And there are some other issues in many cases of abstract reasoning that we associate to high IQ (but have to be careful between "that guy is smart" and "he tested as high IQ").