There is a huge level of anxiety among both Leaving Certificate graduates of 2025 and their parents regarding the implications for CAO offers of the reduction in grade enhancement.
It has moved from 7 per cent, over and above the pre-Covid 2019 results, to the 5.9 per cent enhancement awarded to this year’s graduates.
This anxiety is reflected in large increase in the number of questions submitted to the Irish Times Helpdesk staffed by highly experienced guidance counsellors. The service will be available on Sunday and again after the CAO makes its offers on Wednesday at 2pm.
As to what the final CAO entry point requirement will be for any specific course, the answer is that nobody, including the college offering the programme, can know until the CAO computer inputs over the coming days the results of this year’s exam published on Friday.
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There are 5,300 additional applicants in the system than in 2024, more than four thousand of them in this year’s Leaving Cert class. The class of 2025 received, on average, one enhanced grade fewer than the equivalent students in 2024.
Following the decision of the State Examinations Commission (SEC) to settle on a 5.9 per cent enhancement in 2025, 52 per cent of grades (or 229,275) were enhanced across the entire 430,000 grades awarded this year.
The percentage in 2024 was 68 per cent; it was 71 per cent in 2023. If the SEC had enhanced at the 2024 level of 7 per cent, over and above 2019, there would have been 297,840 or approximately 68,000 additional grade enhancements.
Will the fact that the class of 2025 – 51,000 of whom are seeking a place in college through the CAO application process – has on average one less enhanced grade than those 20,000 applicants who are presenting Leaving Cert results mainly from 2021 to 2024, lead to an overall reduction in the CAO entry points requirements for courses across the board?
Or will the fact that the combination of 5,000 additional applicants in the system, and the large number holding 7 per cent enhanced grades, result in CAO points requirements staying at 2024 levels?
We do know that because of additional places approved by Minister for Further and Higher education, James Lawless, particularly in the medical and paramedical disciplines, entry points should be lower than in 2024 in the universities and faculties concerned.
The existence of these additional places may have encouraged more students to apply for those disciplines, thus leaving open the possibility that points may stay at 2024 levels.
Another area of concern expressed in the questions submitted to the Irish Times Helpdesk is the criteria for allocating places under the Hear and Dare schemes for those students who have been approved as either disabled or disadvantaged by the Irish Universities Association who manage the scheme on behalf of the universities.
There is no centralised rule book for the allocation of these places, and each faculty assesses the merit of each applicant and their CAO points score in determining who gets offers of these coveted places.
Many of those who are approved under both schemes will receive an offer of a place next Wednesday based on their Leaving Cert or equivalent school leaving exam result. But as approved Hear or Dare applicants, they will still receive the full level of support provided by universities to students who qualified under both schemes.
The Helpdesk staff also received several inquiries relating to access to the marks awarded on each Leaving Cert paper and when that will be available.
The SEC will provide Leaving Cert students with access on Tuesday 26th next, through their accounts on the SEC online portal. There is no stated reason for the delay in giving students access to this data, but common sense suggests there may be occasional administrative errors in processing 430,000 grades. And that such errors may have been communicated by school principals on behalf of the student in question on Friday or the coming Monday.
When students do get access to their marks and grades on Tuesday, they can then apply to view their scripts mainly online on Saturday/Sunday next at no charge or cost.
If they do decide to appeal, their papers will be corrected again by a new advising examiner in the coming weeks and the results of those appeals will be communicated to students on September 26th.
If, because of an upgrade, they become eligible for a college place higher up their course list, they will be offered that by the university. But there is no guarantee that the university will be able or willing to provide the place in 2025-26. The student may have to settle for a guaranteed place in 2026-27.
The CAO is processing the data on the Leaving Cert results of the class of 2025. They will make the course offers of a maximum of one course only on a candidate’s level 8 and level 7/6 list on Wednesday at 2pm. Candidates will have until September 2nd at 3pm to accept an offer.
The CAO, on its website, will publish a list of degree programmes where there are still places available following the round one offers at noon on Thursday. If a CAO applicant wishes to add one of these programmes to their list, they may do so online. New applicants are welcome to apply for any of these vacant places.
