New figures from the Central Applications Office reveal the elitism of the most prestigious university courses. Only one-third of CAO applicants get 400- 600 points, the number required to study many arts, business and humanities courses.
One third score 150-399 points and a further third score below 150 points. More than one in four applicants - nearly 28 per cent - are ineligible for any course for which they applied.
When the ineligible applicants are excluded, half of applicants score 400 points or more.
This year's unprecedented points requirements for careers in the health sciences has focused attention on the extraordinary pressure of the Leaving Cert process.
The average CAO applicant scores 350 points - enough to study science, food technology and computers but not enough to study psychology, teaching or English. The average Leaving Cert student scores even less than the average CAO applicant - 300 points compared to 350.
Reacting to this year's record scores, the Catholic Secondary Parents' Association said the average Leaving Cert student, who got 300 points, was automatically eliminated from many walks of life.
The association has called on the Minister for Education to reform not just medical education, but the entire points system.
Average students were being excluded from most third-level courses in universities and institutes of education, according to CAO results.
The association said it was not surprised to find that the average student would only be offered places on 15.5 per cent of degree courses in ITs and universities and places on 65 per cent of diploma/certificate courses.
"The average student is therefore excluded from 84.5 per cent of degree courses and 35 per cent of diploma/certificate courses."
Ms Barbara Johnston, p.r.o. of the association, said there was nothing fair about the average student not being allowed to participate in all walks of life.
Students with no more than 300 points are excluded from commerce, food business, journalism, leisure management, retail and service management or a diploma/certificate in travel and tourism, business, property valuation and even furniture production.
One in five students who began secondary school in 1994 did not remain to do the Leaving Cert, according to a report by the Department of Education and Science.
Ms Johnston suggested that students may be dropping out before taking their Leaving Certificates because they believed they would be useless unless they were above-average students.
The Labour Party Seanad spokeswoman on education and science, Ms Joanna Tuffy, has blamed the "inflexibility" of colleges for the one-in-four drop-out rate at third-level.
"The problem is that the 'product' they are being offered, on a take it or leave it basis, is only of one type - a full-time course of at least two years' duration before they get any qualification.
"Do the college authorities ever seriously ask themselves the question: does this one-size-fits- all offering meet the needs of all aspiring students?" Full-time education was "designed for another era when it was only for the privileged elite", she said.
"It is time the colleges, and in particular the universities, looked at the needs of students, particularly mature students and school-leavers from homes who cannot afford to forgo the income from jobs."