A STUDENT who scored seven As and 580 points in the Leaving Certificate has made almost €3,000 by selling his study notes online.
Cillian Fahy, who attended Gort Community School in Co Galway, took the unusual step of selling his Leaving Certificate notes on the online auction site eBay.ie to help finance his third-level education.
When the auction deadline passed yesterday, the enterprising student had bids of €1,100 for his French notes, which helped him achieve an A2 grade, and €1,020 for his Maths notes, which helped him to an A1 grade. His English notes sold for €271.87, his music notes for €120, history notes for €192.50 and Irish notes for €140, bringing the total to €2,844.37.
The 18-year-old, who is to start a degree in English Literature and Mathematics at Trinity College Dublin this month, said he was surprised no one had thought of doing it before, as websites such as eBay.ie are so widely used by teenagers across the country.
Now, with the economy the way it is, students need to be more resourceful and clever in finding ways to finance college, he said, adding: “I found it very hard to get work this summer, which made this idea more appealing to get money for college.”
Speaking to The Irish Times, the student from New Quay, Co Clare said: "Some people suggested I photocopy my notes so I could sell multiple copies, but I think if everyone wrote the same thing they might not get as good a grade, so I opted to sell each set of notes to the highest bidder instead. I think people found them more valuable knowing they were unique – that no one else would have the same set. Selling your notes could become an economic incentive to write good notes and have more original thought."
James Esses, a student at Sandford Park school in Ranelagh, is also using the website to auction off his notes in Business, Classical Studies, French and History – in which he achieved A1 grades.
“At the moment I only have a few bids on some of my notes, but it’s still early days,” he said.
“Here I have the whole Leaving Certificate Higher Level Business Course summarised into my own personal notes that got me an A1 in the exams this year. It has each and every unit covered, with the most important definitions, key facts and examples needed to ace the exam without having to read through 100s of pages of boring business waffle,” his blurb says.