American overconfidence at universities

by philg

I’m listening to Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness in my car. The authors describe a survey of MBA students in which just 5 percent predicted that they would turn out to be in the bottom 50 percent of the class. Fifty percent of the students predicted that they would fall into the top 20 percent when the semester was over. How about their professors? A university-wide survey (not just the B-school) found that 94 percent of professors imagined themselves to be above average in competence.

[I wonder if the more elite the group the greater the overconfidence. A math professor told me about her days as a graduate student teaching calculus at Florida State: “A third of the students were jocks who didn’t do any homework. They expected not to learn anything and to fail the class, which they did.” She was fortunate to land a job as an assistant professor at an expensive elite private university. “It was the same situation there. About a third of the students didn’t do any work and didn’t learn any calculus so I gave them Fs, just like at Florida State. A few days later every dean at the university converged on my office to explain that my students were not failures and could not possibly receive Fs. I had to change all of the grades to Cs.”]

6 thoughts on “American overconfidence at universities”

  2. Show me a university where everyone passes, and I’ll show you a university where passing is meaningless.

  3. to expand on what Mitty said:

    I suspect this is actually a result of grade inflation. If C is average, and you’ve been an A- student with every group you’ve ever been in, then it would be natural to assume that you would be relatively the same as you’ve always been. I suspect for most of them it would be safe to assume that you would perform about as well as you always have.

    i.e. 80 percent were told they were in the top half, based on grades. No surprise they don’t realize that an A- is 50th percentile.

  4. Back in the late 90s, a few years after getting my JD, I was in a PhD program and served as a TA. Part of my responsibilities included grading MBA papers. The first set of papers I graded I gave out several Ds, numerous Cs, and only 1 A. Most papers were heavily edited, including spelling. My professor, also a lawyer, told me I needed to lighten up or we’d have a revolt.

    Attend any court-mandated driving program and ask the attendees, “Who here believes they are above-average drivers?” to raise their hand, and at least 75% of the people will raise their hands.

    We’re all above average.

  5. I recently received a graduate degree (PhD) in one of those “hard sciences” we all need so much more of in this country. However, I was having trouble finding work. In a conversation with an in-law, who is getting an MBA, I acknowledged that I may not be good enough for these jobs and am considering other possibilities. I have since been treated poorly with cheap shots and questioning of my job hunt when ever I attend a family function. The consequences for not playing “fake it till you make it” may be so dire that people don’t bother with being realistic.

    Being openly realistic about your abilities seems to be treated like a contagious disease, with people excusing themselves from the presence of the infected. However, falling for people’s inflated sense of worth may cause unhappiness later, since things seem to never turn out as good as “expected”.

  6. And here I was thinking my students are the only ones not allowed to fail… Not sure if this makes everything more depressing or actually better and I simply shouldn’t care.

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