LEAVING CERT STUDENTS will receive their CAO offers on 8 September, six days after the publication of exam results.

Round two offers will follow on 19 September.

It’s the third year in a row that Leaving Cert results and CAO offers examination won’t be available until early September, later than the usual mid-August date, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The delay in issuing the results this year has been criticised by some opposition TDs.

Head of Communications for CAO, Eileen Keleghan, said: “The processing schedule for Round One offers cannot commence until CAO receives the Leaving Certificate examination results data from the State Examinations Commission.

“CAO and HEIs will endeavour to complete the offer allocation process and issue offers in a similar timeframe to previous years, as soon as this data becomes available.

CAO applicants can change their course choices until next Friday, 1 July, at 5pm.

Applicants are also being reminded to check and confirm their account information if they have not already done so.

The 2022 offers season will commence on 7 July with the issue of “Round A” offers for mature applicants, mature nursing and midwifery applicants and deferred applicants.

Round 0 offers will issue on 5 August to graduate-entry medicine applicants, additional mature applicants and deferred and access applicants.

Education Minister Norma Foley has defended the later-than-usual release of Leaving Cert results, saying we are “still journeying through Covid” and dealing with the knock-on effects of the pandemic.
Foley said the provision of a deferred sitting of exams for some students and shortages in the numbers of teachers required to fill examiner positions played a role in choosing the date.

“Every student should have the maximum opportunity to showcase their talents”, she said, adding “if we could magic up another date that would be done”.

Foley said that calls by some stakeholders to move the exams to earlier in the year, rather than in June, would have “a huge knock-on effect” and require starting the school year itself earlier than normal.

The minister said she believed third level institutions would show “flexibility” in terms of students starting their courses in September.