What impact will the 2023 Leaving Cert results have on the CAO?

Following instructions from Minister for Education Norma Foley in recent weeks, the grades awarded to this year’s Leaving Cert students will remain at 2022 and 2021 levels.

To achieve that objective the originally marked scripts of all 2023 Leaving Cert students were adjusted upwards by 7.9 per cent in recent weeks. This process has resulted in an upward adjustment in 70 per cent of grades awarded to candidates.

Students receiving their results from 10am this morning will be pleasantly surprised to see how well they have done resulting from the grade inflation process their originally marked scripts have now undergone.

Those who will be less happy with the Minister’s decision to continue to inflate grades to previous levels are CAO applicants from Northern Ireland presenting Level A awards, or students who sat the International Baccalaureate (IB) in Ireland and elsewhere, as well as the many thousands of continental European applicants to the CAO who are now seeking places in Irish universities, now that they are treated as international applicants in UK universities since Brexit and must pay fees of £30,000 and upwards.

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The joy for many Leaving Cert students may be short-lived when the CAO makes their 1st round offers next Wednesday, as points will be at or close to 2022 levels.

The only place where points may see a reduction will be where additional places have been created by Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris in recent months. In addition to the 1,071 long-term additional places the Minister added in 2022, he has now added 462 additional places in medical and paramedical courses. He has also agreed to fund a further 250 places in nursing (200), occupational therapy (20), physiotherapy (20) and speech and language therapy (10) to be delivered by universities in Northern Ireland. These places will be awarded to Republic of Ireland applicants who sought places through the UK UCAS application process in 2023.

Other than in the case of where additional places have been added CAO points across the board are highly likely to remain at or close to 2022 levels.

This may lead to frustration on the part of students who secure more than 600 CAO points today but still fail to secure their first choice course in the first-round offers.

Even more frustrated will be the truly unfortunate CAO applicants who may have secure the maximum score of 625 and fail to secure their place through the random selection process. This process occurs when there are more applicants on a particular CAO points score than there are places remaining to fill. Thankfully both in 2021 and 2022 this only occurred in a handful of courses.

Over the coming weekend and in the early days of next week the CAO will check and cross-check the allocation of places on all courses. It will award places at the instruction of the colleges in question to applicants based on their Dare and Hear status. The remaining places will then be offered to all those who have met the academic minimum entry requirements for the courses, in order of achievement working downwards from 625 CAO points.

Applicants will access their offer through viewing their account on the CAO website from 2pm on Wednesday, August 30th. Many applicants will receive two offers from both their level 8 and level 6/7 lists. They can accept only one, by 3pm on Tuesday, September 5th.