How to Get a First in Economics at University
A 68 on an essay you were genuinely proud of. You read the feedback twice, checking for a mistake. There isn't one. A 68 is a strong, solid 2:1 and it's nowhere near the 70 threshold that defines a First.
Nobody ever explained the actual gap between "good essay" and "First-class essay." You assumed working harder in the same direction would eventually close it. It didn't.
I'm currently studying for a First Class degree in Economics and Development at the University of Manchester, alongside five years of teaching A Level Economics, every 2024 student I worked with achieved an A or above.
Getting a First isn't about working harder in the same way as everyone else around you. It's about identifying the specific, learnable skills that separate a 68 from a 72, and building them deliberately, rather than hoping more hours in the library eventually does it for you. That's what this blog actually covers.
What Actually Separates a First From a 2:1
Here's the uncomfortable truth: by second and third year, nearly every student on an economics course has strong content knowledge. Everyone can define the Phillips curve. Everyone can sketch a Solow diagram.
The classification boundary was never going to be drawn on knowledge alone, if it were, most of your cohort would already have a First.
What actually separates the two is three distinct, identifiable dimensions:
- Genuine conceptual understanding: not just module competence, but the ability to reason with a model rather than just reproduce it.
- Technical fluency in quantitative methods: real comfort with econometrics, not just enough to pass the exam.
- And demonstrated independent critical thinking in written work: an essay that does something beyond competently answering the question.
Most students who narrowly miss a First are strong on one or two of these dimensions and underdeveloped on the third, usually without realising which one.
The rest of this blog is about identifying that gap, specifically, rather than guessing at it.
Genuine Conceptual Understanding, Not Just Module Knowledge
This is the degree-level version of a problem I've written about before in the context of A Level revision, except at university, the gap doesn't show up as a mock result.
It shows up as a 65 on an essay you genuinely thought was strong, with feedback that says something like "descriptive rather than analytical" and gives you almost nothing to act on.
The same underlying method applies here as at A Level, just aimed at harder material.
Take a model you've studied, the Solow growth model, a general equilibrium framework, whatever your current module covers and explain it in plain language, as if to someone with no economics background.
Notice exactly where the explanation requires jargon to keep going. That exact point is where your understanding is still incomplete, however fluently you can reproduce the diagram in an exam.
If this method is unfamiliar, our guide on how to actually understand economics covers it in more depth, the underlying principle doesn't change at degree level. Only the material gets harder.
Econometrics - Where Strong Students Lose the Most Marks
This is the module that trips up otherwise strong students more consistently than any other, and it's worth understanding exactly why.
Econometrics demands a genuinely different kind of thinking than the discursive, essay-based skills most students have spent years building.
Statistical reasoning, coding, interpreting regression output, none of it resembles writing a persuasive argument, which is the skill most students arrive at university having already practised extensively.
Here's the specific distinction that matters for your mark: being able to run a regression and being able to interpret and critically evaluate what it actually shows are two different skills, and only the second one is genuinely rewarded.
A student who can produce the output but can't explain what a coefficient means in context, whether the model is correctly specified, or what its limitations are, is demonstrating technical competence without economic understanding and markers can tell the difference immediately.
Genuine fluency comes from working through real datasets and problem sets repeatedly, not from understanding the theory behind OLS or hypothesis testing in the abstract.
Reading about heteroskedasticity is not the same as recognising it in your own residual plots. The only way through this module, reliably, is by doing it often and with feedback on what you got wrong.
What a First-Class Essay Actually Does Differently
This is the most practically useful thing I can tell you, so it's worth being specific.
A solid 2:1 essay competently answers the question. It uses the relevant models, cites the right evidence, and constructs a clear argument. That's genuinely good work. It just isn't, on its own, First-class work.
A First-class essay does all of that, and then goes further in ways that are identifiable. It demonstrates awareness of the limitations of the models it uses, rather than deploying them as if they're unquestionably true.
It engages critically with the academic literature, not just citing a paper to support a point, but interrogating its methodology or noting where it's contested by other research. And it often stakes out an original or nuanced position, rather than simply summarising the existing debate and landing safely in the middle.
Take a paragraph evaluating a minimum wage policy. A 2:1-level paragraph might say:
"According to neoclassical theory, a minimum wage set above equilibrium should reduce employment, as shown by Card and Krueger's research." That's competent. It's also thin, it name-checks a source without actually using it.
A First-class version does something more:
"Card and Krueger's 1994 study of the New Jersey fast food sector found no significant disemployment effect, challenging the standard competitive prediction, a result later explained by monopsony power in low-wage labour markets, where employers hold wage-setting power below the competitive level.
This suggests the employment effect of a minimum wage depends heavily on market structure, meaning the standard competitive model may systematically overstate disemployment risk in precisely the markets where minimum wage policy is most often applied."
Same source, same broad point. Completely different level of engagement, because the second version interrogates the theory rather than just citing it.
Read Beyond the Reading List
The reading list is the baseline. First-class work usually shows evidence of reading slightly beyond what was explicitly assigned and markers notice this more readily than students expect.
Practically, this means following up citations that appear repeatedly across your reading list rather than treating the list as a closed set. It means engaging with a working paper or recent publication genuinely relevant to your essay topic.
Resources like NBER, VoxEU, and the Bank of England's own research pages are underused by undergraduates and genuinely accessible, not written exclusively for academics.
This matters concretely, not just as an abstract virtue. It's one of the clearest, most visible signals to a marker that a student has engaged with a topic independently, rather than synthesising exactly what was assigned.
Two essays with similar arguments read very differently when one clearly draws only from the seminar reading and the other shows the student went looking for more.
Seminars Are Not Optional Extras
Passive attendance (turning up, taking notes, saying little) caps your ceiling, even if your independent exam performance is genuinely strong.
Genuine participation, including disagreeing with a point or asking a question you're not certain isn't obvious, builds exactly the kind of independent critical thinking that shows up later in essays and exams.
It's practice for the exact skill that separates a First-class essay from a 2:1 one, constructing and defending a position under mild challenge, in real time.
This is uncomfortable for a lot of students, particularly ones who feel less than fully certain of their own understanding.
Worth saying plainly: that discomfort is not a sign you shouldn't speak. It's one of the most underused, lowest-cost ways to build the exact skill this entire blog is about, and every seminar you sit through in silence is a rehearsal you didn't take.
Dissertation and Independent Research
For students whose degree includes a dissertation or extended independent project, this is often where the difference between a First and a 2:1 becomes most visible because there's no reading list to lean on.
What distinguishes genuinely First-class independent research: a question that's actually original, or at least angled distinctively, rather than a well-worn topic revisited without a new lens.
Methodological rigour that holds up to scrutiny. And often overlooked: honest engagement with the limitations of your own analysis, rather than presenting findings as more conclusive than the data actually supports.
One piece of practical advice worth taking seriously: choosing a topic you're genuinely curious about tends to produce stronger work than choosing one that sounds impressive on paper.
Dissertations have difficult stretches, data that doesn't cooperate, a method that needs rethinking halfway through. Genuine curiosity is what carries a project through those stretches. An impressive-sounding topic you don't actually care about rarely does.
Consistency Across Three Years, Not Just a Strong Final Year
At most UK universities, second-year marks count meaningfully toward your final classification, not just final year. A common, costly misconception is treating second year as lower stakes, coasting through it, and assuming a strong final-year push will make up the difference.
The practical guidance here is straightforward, even if it's not easy: build genuinely sustainable study habits early, rather than trying to compensate for a weak second year with an unsustainable final-year sprint.
The students who get Firsts aren't usually the ones who work hardest in their final term. They're the ones who were already doing the work in second year, when it felt like it mattered less.
This connects directly to something worth remembering: the classification you're working toward right now is the same one that determines access to competitive graduate schemes, economic consultancies, and postgraduate study, as covered in our guide to economics jobs in the UK. The stakes of second year rarely feel real while you're living through it. They're real anyway.
An Honest Note on Realistic Expectations
A First is genuinely difficult. Following every technique in this blog doesn't guarantee one, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise.
What these techniques do reliably offer is more useful than a guarantee: they identify the actual, learnable levers that move a mark from a 65 to a 70-plus, rather than leaving you to guess at what "work harder" is supposed to mean in practice.
Most students who narrowly miss a First aren't missing effort. They're missing a clear picture of exactly where that effort needs to go.
Conclusion
A First isn't earned by doing more of what already earns a 2:1. It's earned by developing specific, identifiable skills (conceptual depth, quantitative fluency, independent critical thinking) that most students are never explicitly taught, and are left to discover through trial and error across three years.
The gap between a 68 and a 72 was never about effort. It was always about knowing exactly what the extra four marks were asking for.
If econometrics specifically is the clear gap or if essay technique is holding back marks that your content knowledge doesn't fully explain, MTJT's university-level Economics tutoring is built around exactly this kind of targeted, diagnostic support.
Key Takeaways:
- By second and third year, nearly every economics student has strong content knowledge: the First/2:1 boundary is drawn elsewhere, on understanding, quantitative fluency, and independent thinking
- Apply active recall and the Feynman technique to degree-level models, the exact point your explanation needs jargon is the exact point your understanding is incomplete
- Econometrics rewards interpretation and critical evaluation of output, not just the ability to produce it
- A First-class essay interrogates the models and literature it uses rather than just citing them
- Read beyond the reading list, participate genuinely in seminars, and treat second year with the same seriousness as final year
- A First is genuinely difficult and not guaranteed by any method but these are the specific, learnable levers that actually move the mark
If a specific module or skill is holding your marks back, book a free 20-minute consultation with More Than Just Tuition to talk through where you are and what would help.
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