CAO 2023: Students likely to be relatively happy as points drop in many courses

It’s been another year of Leaving Cert grade inflation. With more students yet again securing high grades, there was a widespread expectation that many CAO points would also rise. As it happened many fell.

However, with so many students getting top marks, there is a likelihood that, once again, students who secured the points they need will miss out on random selection.

Again, this raises the question of how fair is an exam where students meet their end of the bargain – working as hard as they possibly can to secure the points they need to get in to their course, only to find out that it still wasn’t enough.

It should be pointed out that a decline in points for a course is no reflection on the quality of a course. It is solely about supply and demand. Polymer engineering at TUS, for instance, was never a particularly high-points course, but its graduates generally go on to excellent careers with high earning potential.

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So, how has it all panned out, and are points up or down in key areas?

Overall, students are likely to be relatively happy, with points down in many popular courses, almost 60 per cent getting their first choice and 85 per cent getting one of their top three courses.

Health science

This year, with more college places due to come on stream and a slight dip in applications, there was some hope that the CAO points for health science degrees would fall.

For medicine students, that hope has been realised, with the main universities offering medicine – UCD, Trinity, UCC, University of Galway and RCSI – all seeing a drop in CAO points. This will be a relief to many aspiring medics, who may otherwise have missed out by as little as five or six points.

At UCD, points to get into medicine are down from 743 to 736. At Trinity, they fall four points to 741. UCC’s medicine degree requires 732 points this year, compared to 738 in 2022. At the University of Galway, points are down from 736 to 729. And at RCSI, students require 734 points, compared to 741 last year.

But it’s not all good news: both UCD and the University of Galway are applying random selection, so not everyone who got the requisite points is guaranteed a place on those courses.

In other areas of health science, it’s largely positive news for students.

At both Trinity College and UCC, applicants need 613 points to get in to the pharmacy degree this year, and random selection will apply in both cases; this was the same last year. RCSI’s pharmacy degree requires 601 points, with random selection applied; this is a fall of 12 points from last year, where random selection also applied.

Dental science at both UCC and Trinity College stays steady at 625, with no random selection this year.

Points for physiotherapy at RCSI are 578, down one from last year. Trinity requires 580 points for physiotherapy, down 10 from 590.

As for nursing, TUS applicants require 370 points for the course in Athlone, down from 420 last year. SETU students require 398 points, down from 421. UCC applicants require 424 points – down from 464 last year. At DCU, nursing applicants need 389 points, down from 447 last year.<QA0>

Science

In living memory, 300 or 350 points was enough to get a student into a science degree. Not any more – but many points are down this year.

UCD’s science degree, which reached a record high points requirement last year, is down from 566 to 555 points, while there are also relatively significant declines in points for most of Trinity College’s science degrees, with a rise in points from 487 to 494 for geography and geoscience being the only exception.

ATU’s science degree requires 400 points this year, down from 445 in 2022. Students will also be happy to see points for Maynooth University’s science degree unchanged at 350. At UL, meanwhile, biological and chemical sciences also stays steady at 487 points.

DCU’s genetics and cell biology course falls from 543 to 532 points.

Veterinary science and agriculture

Points for veterinary medicine at UCD are down from 601 to 589, with no random selection, but points for veterinary nursing at the same university are up from 500 to 518.

UCD’s agricultural course required 400 points last year, down from 454 in 2021; this year it stays steady at 400 points.

Arts, humanities and law

Last year, points for some key arts either fell or stayed steady.

In 2022, points for arts at UCD – one of the country’s most popular courses – rose to 400 from 381. This year sees a fall in points, with the course requiring 378 points.

However, humanities at UCD, which is a similar arts course but with a different structure – four years instead of three, and with internship and study abroad opportunities built in – seems to be attracting more students, with points up marginally from 442 last year to 444 this year.

At the University of Galway and UCC, points for the joint honours arts degree stay steady at 336 and 300, respectively.

Points for journalism courses, meanwhile, continue to fall, perhaps in a belated recognition that career prospects in this industry are increasingly uncertain. At DCU, points plummet from 432 to 388, while TU Dublin’s course also sees a fall: students need just 330 points, compared to 377 last year.

Many law degrees have also seen points fall, with UCC requiring 525 points (539 in 2022), UL requiring 506 points (521 in 2022), 525 in UCC (539 last year), 565 in UCD (569 in 2022) and 462 at Maynooth University (496 last year).

Business

Last year, points for business courses stayed reasonably steady, with some rising by just a point or two.

This year also sees some significant points falls, with Trinity College’s popular business, economic and social studies course down from 576 to 555, commerce at UCD down from 554 to 545, and commerce at UCC down from 508 to 499.

Engineering and computer science

Again, the story is that points are largely the same, steady or up only slightly. Computer science at UCD is down from 567 to 560 points.

DCU’s biotechnology degree course is up by one point to 522.

At Trinity College, engineering is down from 569 to 555 points. Engineering at SETU requires 291 points, up from 276 last year. The University of Galway sees engineering rise by just two points, up to 533 from 531 last year.

Architecture and construction

More architecture and construction graduates are needed to build and retrofit more houses.

UCD’s architecture course required 566 points last year, and this year it’s up again, albeit by just one point. Still, that one point can make all the heartbreaking difference for some students. UCC and MTU’s joint programme, meanwhile, falls from 544 to 532, while UL’s course is down from 532 to 511 points, with random selection applied.

*Amended on 31/08/23