More than 4,500 offers have been made in the second round of the CAO offers process. This brings the proportion of CAO applicants who received an offer of a college place this autumn to 82 per cent.

Today's post brings welcome news to 801 applicants who had not previously received an offer. The remaining offers provide students with an opportunity to acquire a place in a higher-preference course. At this stage, 82,278 offers have been made, an increase on last year's end-of-round-two total of 79,148.

The CAO will not make a third round of offers this year, but the process of re-offering places which have been refused will continue in the coming weeks.

The number of offers exceeds the number of applicants because a number of students were made offers from both the degree and the certificate/diploma lists. They could only accept one of these offers. More than 17,000 applicants have turned down offers.

The round-two offers comprise 1,858 degree places and 2,666 certificate/diploma places. By the end of round one, 19,457 applicants had accepted degree places, compared with 18,235 round one acceptances last year. At certificate/diploma level, there were 15,732 acceptances by the end of round one, as compared to 14,915 last year.

Overall, fewer offers were made in the second round this year. Last year, more than 6,600 offers were made at this stage. So, as a corollary, there is relatively little change overall in the cut-off points, particularly in the high-points courses.

At degree level, there were drops of 30 points or more in 12 courses (see table, page 3). The most dramatic fall was in UCD's evening arts course, which is fee-paying. In DIT, applied science and culinary arts fell by 60 each, while in UCD commerce with Swedish dropped by 45 points.

There were falls of 45 and 35 points respectively for two degrees offered by DIT - design (interior and furniture design) and design (visual communications). The cut-off points for these courses include points for assessments other than the Leaving Cert.

While points are largely comparable across colleges and courses, it should be borne in mind the UL awards bonus points for higher-level maths, while the universities and DIT give lower points for the LCVP link modules than the other institutes of technology. DIT awards bonus points for maths and some science subjects in the case of its electrical/electronic engineering degree. And, in some courses, points exceed the theoretical maximum of 600 because they include points for assessments or portfolios.

High points courses

As might be expected, there was little change in the courses requiring the highest points. The two TCD courses which required the highest points in round one - law and French, and medicine - remained at 570*. (The asterisk means random selection applied.) Law at TCD dropped by 15 points, to 525.

TCD's law with German degree remained at 560, while history and politics at TCD was also unchanged at 540. Actuarial studies at UCD dropped by five points.

Medical/paramedical degrees

Points remained largely unchanged with falls of five points in three colleges - UCC, RCSI and NUI Galway. There was no change in TCD and UCD. Of the five courses, three registered random selection in round two, so there are a number of disappointed applicants who had the points but lost out in the computerised lottery.

Dentistry remained unchanged in TCD (540*) and UCC (535*). In DIT, the points required for optometry fell by 10 to 535; however, there was no change in DIT's human nutrition and dietetics course, which remained at 505.

Veterinary medicine in UCD remained unchanged at 540*. Physiotherapy at TCD and UCD also remained static, both registering 540*, while physiotherapy at RCSI fell by five points to 530. Pharmacy, therapeutic radiography and occupational therapy at TCD also fell by five points. Radiography at UCD remained unchanged. TCD's new medicinal chemistry course stayed at 520, while NUI Galway's biomedical sciences course fell by five to 510*.

Arts

There was also very little movement in omnibus arts programmes, other than arts at NUI Galway - losing its random selection asterisk - and arts at NUI Maynooth, which fell by five to 360*. Arts in St Angela's also fell by five.

Commerce/business degrees

Again, there was very little change in round two. The points required for commerce in UCC, UCD and NUI Galway and business studies in DIT, UL, WIT and DCU were unchanged. In TCD, the random selection asterisk disappeared for BESS, while there was no change in the business and languages courses.

There were falls in the cutoff points for some of the courses which combine business or commerce and languages. For instance, commerce and Swedish at UCD fell by 45, while UCD's commerce and Spanish degree dropped by 20. In UCC, commerce with German dropped by 10, while in NUI Galway commerce with German fell by 15.

Omnibus engineering degrees

There was no change in three colleges - DIT, TCD and NUI Galway. However, in UCD engineering fell a further 10 points; at 375 it is now 55 points below last year's final cut-off.

General science degrees

A dramatic drop of 60 points has brought the round two cut-off for DIT's applied science degree down to 245. In UCC, the chemistry-maths-physics degree fell by 15 to 345. There were drops of five points in UCD, NUI Maynooth and NUI Galway's science programmes. Points remained unchanged in DCU and TCD.

Primary teacher training

There was very little movement in the cut-off points in round two. In St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, random selection disappeared, leaving a cut-off of 460. In Mary Immaculate and Froebel colleges cut-off points dropped by five.

PE and clinical speech

Two courses - PE in UL and clinical speech in TCD - do not make offers in round one. The cut-offs in round two were 495 (no change on 1998) and 515* (up 15 on last year) respectively.

Certificate/diploma

There were drops of 30 points or more in the cut-off levels of some 25 courses. The most dramatic drop was in Letterkenny IT's graphic design course, which fell by 120, and Galway Mayo IT's medical device engineering course, which dropped by 100. Also at GMIT, forestry management fell by 80 points and furniture production (Letterfrack campus) fell by 55.

Accounting in CIT fell by 80. The cut-off points for some of these courses include points for an assessment other than the Leaving Certificate.

Medical/paramedical certs/diplomas

The cut-off points for medical lab sciences in CIT and GMIT remained static at 430 and 420 respectively. However, there was a fall of 10 in the points required for medical lab sciences in DIT, where the round two cut-off is 395. Carlow IT's physiology/health course retained its cut-off level of 400.