WHO GETS into college and who doesn't is a fascinating social study in itself. The social class, geographical background and gender of entrants into different colleges and the different study areas presents us with a snapshot of social mobility and tells us a lot, too, about the relative status of different careers and how different social groups perceive them.

College courses in law, medicine and architecture, for example, are dominated by the children of those from the same higher professions. Thus 30 per cent of students going into architecture, 26 per cent in the case of law and 27 per cent of those entering medicine in 1992 came from higher professional backgrounds.

The other group which is highly represented in these faculties are the children of employers and managers, accounting for 22 per cent of the intake into law, 21 per cent into medicine and 23 per cent into dentistry, for example.

But while the children of employer/managers are equally highly represented in the intake into commerce and arts, for example, the higher professionals' children are very much concentrated in the professions.

Dentistry seems to appeal less to the children of higher professionals than the other professions. Of the intake into dentistry, employers/managers' children account for 23 per cent and farmers' children 21 per cent, but higher professional families account for only 15 per cent of the intake here.

Then there is veterinary: a full 40 per cent of the intake into veterinary is composed of farmers' children, with the higher professionals making up only IS per cent of the intake. It is understandable that more farmers' offspring would be interested in becoming vets, but one has to take into account also that the points required here are astronomical, so it's a matter of brains as well as interest.

Employers/managers' children account for only 7 per cent of entry to veterinary, the lowest proportion of any faculty for that socio-economic group. However, they have no such inhibitions when it comes to equestrian courses where they account for 37 per cent of the intake - all those lovely ponies and riding schools.

What the offspring of farmers study is a fascinating sociological study in itself. They form by far and away the largest component of the entry into veterinary and the second largest (20 per cent) for dentistry. After the upper professionals and the employer/managers' children, they represent the third largest group entering medicine at 15 per cent.

In the case of the intake into commerce, science and engineering farmers' children are around 15 to 17 per cent, but when it comes to law, they fall to only 7 per cent of the intake. In fact, there are more manual workers' children (8 per cent) entering law courses than farmers' children. Clearly, the law does not appeal to the farming community.

But when we come to teaching a very different picture emerges. Here the children of farmers represent a quarter of the entire intake into teacher training degrees - 40 per cent in the case of the Church of Ireland college. Children of the higher professionals, on the other hand, have very little interest in teaching and represent only 2 per cent of the total intake. And the employed managers' kids are not too keen either, accounting for only 8 per cent of the intake.

WHAT about working class kids? The sector which emerges by far as the most egalitarian in terms of the socio-economic background of students is teaching. An amazing28 per cent of the intake into teacher training degrees are children whose parents are manual workers, either skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled.

Even at the unskilled level manual workers' children account for 6 per cent of the entry into teacher training degrees - although a high component of this figure seems to be accounted for by the metal and woodwork teacher training courses in UL.

Law can probably be regarded as the most inequitable of all areas of higher education study. Not only does it have a low proportion of farmers' children, it also accounts for the lowest proportion of manual workers' kids of all - 8 per cent. Do both farming and working class families perceive law as a closed shop, less accessible even than medicine (where 11 per cent of the intake are manual workers' kids).

What colleges do the different socio-economic groups go to? In the universities UCG and UL have by far the highest proportion of their intake from among the ranks of farmers' children - they account for roughly a quarter in each case. In Trinity, however, only to per cent of its intake is from farming families, 13 per cent in the case of UCD and 17 per cent in the case of UCC. So Trinity is short on farmers' children, but it's top heavy with the children of the upper professionals, which account for 21 per cent of its intake.

TRINITY has the highest proportion of higher professionals' children of any college amongst its intake - though UCD is trailing it close with 19 per cent. Meanwhile UL counts only 7 per cent of its intake among the ranks of the upper professional families. UL, of course, does not have medicine, dentistry or architecture, but it does have two law degrees.

UCD and Trinity are again neck-and-neck when it comes to the employer/managers' kids - they account for a quarter of UCD's intake and 24 per cent of Trinity's - and 21 per cent of DCU's intake with the other universities trailing around the 15-16 per cent level for this socio-economic group.

But perhaps most revealing of all is the Royal College of Surgeons. An astonishing (or is it?) 62 per cent of its intake comes from the ranks of the upper professionals - doctors, perhaps? Another 24 per cent come from employer/manager families. After that there is not much left to go around the other socio-economic groups so it is no surprise that not only was there not one single working-class kid among the intake to Surgeons in 1992, neither were any students from the salaried employees or intermediate non-manual group taken in.

Which university does best in terms of taking in what might be called working-class kids?

Interestingly enough, it's Maynooth, a quarter of whose intake comes from manual worker backgrounds. DCU and UL are trailing a close second with 22 per cent and 21 per cent respectively. For UCD, meanwhile, the equivalent figure is 13 per cent and for Trinity 12 per cent. Overall UCD and Trinity rate considerably worse in terms of working-class intake than any other higher education college - only one per cent of the intake of both colleges comes from unskilled manual backgrounds

What about the RTCs and the DIT? It is here that working-class and farming kids really come into their own and the higher professional intake begins to shrink dramatically - much more so, interestingly, than the employer/ manager segment - who probably still recognise a go9d practical training when they see it.

Dundalk and Tallaght RTCs have the best record on working-class intake with 37 per cent of their intake coming from manual worker backgrounds. Limerick, Waterford and Carlow RTCs are close behind with a 35 per cent working-class intake. The DIT, meanwhile counts 28 per cent of its intake among the ranks of manual worker families.

Farmers' children are also heavily represented in RTC intake accounting for about 30 per cent of those entering Athlone, Sligo, Tralee and Galway RTCs - but only 2 per cent in the case of Tallaght RTC! Carlow, Cork and Dundalk RTCs have, by comparison, a lowish intake of farming kids 16 per cent, while in the DIT it is only 11 per cent. Nowhere in the RTC sector do children from upper professional families account for more than 6 per cent of intake - in Athlone it is only 2 per cent.