Thousands of college applicants receive fresh offers

[ here ]

Thousands of college applicants have received fresh offers for courses in CAO round two after points fell across hundreds of courses.

The number of round-two offers – 4,135 – is up significantly on last year. A total of just over 1,450 applicants who missed out in the first round have received an offer for the first time.

However, points did not fall for most high-demand and high-points courses where many places were allocated randomly.

For example, points remained at the maximum level – 625 – for courses such as dentistry at UCC and Trinity and UCD’s economics and finance.

Mary O’Rourke: We should retain the best of this year’s hybrid Leaving Cert

---

Grade inflation fuels cruel CAO process this year. Is there a way back?

---

Third-level education: Finding alternative paths to where you're going

---

What are your options if you are disappointed with your CAO offer?

---

Where points fell for popular courses, they tended to fall by relatively modest margins .

At UCC, for example, there were small reductions for commerce (499, down one point), social science (431, down three points) and general nursing (498, down one)

At Trinity, points fell slightly for occupational therapy (577, down one) general nursing (456, down six points) and social studies (487, down 10 points),

Similarly, points were down by small margins at UCD for most courses such as health and performance science (543, down one point) computer science (549, down five points) science (567, down 10 points),

A total of 4,135 offers were issued on Monday, up significantly on offers issues at the same stage last year (2,855).

Some education observers believe the higher number of overall offers this year may reflect the greater volume of applications from outside Ireland this year.

Many of these applicants may not have accepted offers due to the late issuing of Leaving Cert results and CAO offers this year.

Overall, a total of 2,859 Level Eight (honours degree) offers were issued on Monday along with 1,276 Level Six/Seven (ordinary degree/higher certificate) offers to just over 3,600 CAO applicants in this round.

Of the recipients of Level Eight offers, 1,346 received an offer of their first preference course; for Level Six/Seven offer recipients, a total of 1,063 applicants’ first preference offers were received.

Accepting the course

Applicants receiving an offer in this round have until Wednesday, September 22nd at 3pm to accept their course.

CAO communications officer Eileen Keleghan advised applicants to carefully consider their options ahead of Wednesday’s deadline.

“Many of the applicants receiving a second round offer today may have already accepted an offer in round one and it is important that they take the time to decide between these courses and inform CAO before the reply date of this Wednesday, September 22nd, at 3pm if they wish to accept the new offer. Accepting the new offer will automatically cancel a previous acceptance.

“If this is an applicant’s first offer, they can choose to accept this offer and this will not prevent them from receiving a higher preference course in a later offer round if they are deemed eligible.

“It is important to note, however, that the majority of offers have been issued at this stage and this may be the only offer that they will receive.”

The CAO says its “available places” facility also has almost 200 courses advertised and some additional offers will be issued on a weekly basis from today until mid-October.

Applicants can check if they have received a round-two offer by logging in to their CAO account.

Successful applicants received an offer notification by email and text message, if they had selected this option.