THE CENTRAL APPLICATIONS Office has issued 2,955 offers to applicants in Round Two of CAO offers.

A total of 1,923 Level 8 offers, and 1,032 Level 7/6 offers, were made to 2,630 CAO applicants in this round, the CAO said.

1,098 applicants are receiving an offer for the first time.

Of the recipients of Level 8 offers, 883 received an offer of their first preference course; for Level 7/6 offer recipients a total of 874 applicants’ first preference offers were received.

Applicants receiving an offer in this round will have until this Friday, 25 September at noon to accept their offer.

CAO communications officer, Eileen Keleghan, advises applicants to carefully consider their options and to be mindful of this Friday’s 12pm reply date by which an offer must be accepted.

She said: “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 Friday, 25 September at noon if they wish to accept the new offer.

Accepting the new offer in Round Two will automatically cancel a previous acceptance from Round One.

Keleghan said: “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.

For those who didn’t get the offer they wanted, Keleghan said that there are many other options, including further education courses which offer qualifications in their own right as well as opportunities to progress to third-level.

There are also apprenticeship schemes, taking a year out and reapplying through CAO next year; sitting one or more of the Leaving Certificate examination in November, or repeating the Leaving Certificate.

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How to check your offers

Applicants can check if they have received a Round Two offer by logging in to their CAO account using the ‘My Application’ facility.

Successful applicants will also receive an offer notification by email and SMS text message if they have selected this option.

There will be no paper offer notices for Round Two.

For applicants who have already received an offer in a previous offer round, CAO provides the following advice:

1. Accept the new offer by the ‘Reply Date’ of Friday, 25 September at noon if you prefer this course to the one that you have already accepted – this action automatically cancels your previous acceptance
2. If you do not wish to accept the new offer you can do nothing and your previous acceptance will still stand.
3. If you wish to defer your current offer you must contact the Admissions Office of the offering institution immediately by email with the text ‘Deferred Entry’ in the subject line of the email. See CAO Handbook page 19 or the CAO website for more information.

The CAO Available Places facility remains open, with almost 200 courses with available places advertised – this facility is free to existing applicants, and open to new applications for a fee of €45. Available Place offers are issued from Round Two. Round Three offers will be available to view from 10am on Thursday, 1 October.

For more information about the Offer and Acceptance process or Available Places visit the CAO Handbook (also available online) and watch the CAO video guides at www.cao.ie