A recently published University of Illinois Law Review study found that almost all incoming law students expected to rank within the top half of the class after their first year. The findings are based on a survey given between 2014 and 2019 to students who were entering the University of Illinois law school. The students were asked to predict their class rank after the first year of law school, and the study’s authors compared the predictions to the student’s actual rank.
Students showed great optimism: 95 percent of the students surveyed predicted that they would end up in the top half of their class. And over 22 percent thought that they would be in the top 10 percent. Interestingly enough, the students who did end up landing within the top quartile of the class tended to underestimate their eventual ranking, while those who fell within the bottom quartile had significantly overestimated their final performance.
The study’s authors, University of Illinois law professor, Jennifer Robbennolt, and University of Illinois law graduate, Sam Barder, expected that students would overestimate their performance because of past studies on overconfidence in professional and academic environments. However, Robbennolt noted that a few things about this study made the overestimation more significant. For one, the students took the survey prior to starting classes and had very little information on either the coursework and/or their classmates. And, many of the students likely enjoyed previous academic success and were top performers in college.
“They are coming into a totally new environment,” Robbennolt said. “They don’t have much information about the tasks they will be asked to do and the kind of thinking they will be asked to do. They don’t know much about their peers.”
The authors noted that the study is important because it highlights how law schools might provide incoming students with more information on what’s ahead, which may help them to set reasonable expectations.