And then they become lawyers!
Legal Cheek
A study has highlighted the potential perils of overconfidence for incoming law students.
The study, which appears in the University of Illinois Law Review, found that US law students with the lowest grades often start off with more confidence than their higher-performing peers.
When asked to predict their class rank the average new student expected to end up near the top 25% at the end of their first year.
Of the 600+ students surveyed, 95% anticipated they would rank in the top 50% of the class. Meanwhile, more than 22% thought a top 10% position was on the cards for them.
The paper, titled Optimistic Overconfidence: A Study of Law Student Academic Predictions, identified that students who ended up in the top 25% were more likely to initially slightly underestimate their scores, while those destined for the bottom 25% were more likely to overestimate their eventual mark.
Explaining the psychology behind their findings the authors describe the phenomenon of “optimistic overconfidence”, where humans are naturally inclined to have unrealistically positive views about their abilities.
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Law students grossly overestimate their academic abilities, research finds
