In the fictional town of Lake Wobegon, "all the children are above average." It seems many of those wee Wobegonians have been admitted to law school. Two authors surveyed more than six-hundred incoming law students at the University of Illinois College of Law. Their findings suggest that 1Ls vastly over-estimate their ability to perform well:
The average student predicted that they would finish close to the top 25% of the class (74.9 percentile). Virtually all students (94.9%) predicted that they would finish at the 50th percentile or higher. More than three-quarters (78.2%) of students predicted they would finish in the top 30% of the class, half (53.1%) predicted they would finish in the top 20% of the class, and nearly one-quarter (22.4%) of students thought they would finish in the top 10% in the class. Just 6.2% of students thought they would finish in the top 5% of the class, but thirteen students (2.1%) predicted they would finish at the very top of the class.
Unsurprisingly, 95% of the students were not in the top 50% of the class. Students did not accurately predict their performance. But some students predicted worse than others. As it turns out, the students who ended up performing better underestimated their grades, while students who performed worse overestimated their grades:
