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Snorri comments on Others' predictions of your performance are usually more accurate - Less Wrong Discussion
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I'm often curious about why we evolved in such a haphazard way. Sure, evolution gets stuck on local optima all the time, but this seems to imply that realistically modelling your peers and unrealistically modelling yourself has some sort of fitness payoff.
Generally speaking, it's more useful to believe that you can improve than to believe that improvement is impossible. If toddlers predicted their own walking ability based on past performance only, they would despair of ever walking.
You impress potential mates.
Why don't potential mates ignore your self-estimates and go with the outside view like all other observers?
There are two reasons why having an inflated view of oneself is useful (there are also, of course, reasons why it's not useful, too).
First is that bragging is very widespread technique for winning mates, both in humans and animals. If you can't brag convincingly -- and internal belief certainly helps -- you're falling behind in the competition.
Second is that overestimation of your own abilities leads to feelings of confidence and self-assurance which are useful feelings to have in general (subject to reasonable limits, of course) and, in particular, are very valuable in giving out the right signals to potential mates. In the latter case, though, I think there's a noticeable difference between the sexes -- being self-assured is much more valuable for (straight) males then for (straight) females.
People have a lot of their stated beliefs for signaling purposes and don't use them for guiding their own actions. I think you might get different outcomes if you ask students to bet that they will achieve a certain mark. Actually paving to put money on the line will make student less willing to overpredict their own performance.