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THE FIRST ROUND of CAO placements have been published, offering 82,175 places in college, university or another educational institution to 55,221 applicants.
Round One offers must be accepted online by 3pm on Monday 13 September. Round Two offers will then be released at 10am on Monday 20 September.
Demand for third level places has risen significantly this year, and many courses have seen a rise in points as a result.
An additional 4,600 places have been made available for incoming third-level students this year.
Of the offers given today, 24,758 (50%) Level 8 offers are for the applicant’s first preference course, and 39,063 (79%) Level 8 offers are for one of their top three preferences.
29,365 (89%) Level 7/6 offers are for the applicant’s first preference course, and 32,314 (98%) Level 7/6 offers are for one of their top three preferences.
Individual institutions
Courses across the board have seen an increase in points on last year, with four courses now at 625 points.
Management Science & Information Systems and Dental Science in Trinity College Dublin are both at 625 points this year.
UCD’s Economics & Finance course is also now at 625 points.
Dentistry in University College Cork has also seen its points rise to 625.
Trinity College Dublin has seen a number of other courses exceed 600 points since last year.
Pharmacy is up from 590 to 613 points, Human Health and Disease is up from 565 to 601 points and Physcology is up from 567 to 601 points.
Points also rose for Global Business (613, up from 589), Computer Science (566, up from 509) and Law & French (602, up from 565).
Likewise in University College Dublin, several courses have climbed above 600 – Biomedica, Health and Life Sciences (613, up from 590) and Physiotherapy (601, up from 578).
Demand for similar subjects at Dublin City University was also up, with points rising for Business (511, up from 488) and Accounting & Finance (544, up from 510).
Points rose significantly for Engineering common entry, shooting up from 422 to 511.
NUI Galway also saw points rise in subjects such as General Nursing (502, up from 476), Biomedical Science (613, up from 556) and Occupational Therapy (601, up from 555).
Points for post-primary teaching courses also increased, up 30 points in DCU to 518, up 24 points in Marino Institute of Education to 508 and up 57 points in Maynooth University to 564.
Maynooth University has welcome a strong demand for its courses amount this year’s applicants.
The University will this year see its first-year numbers grow to over 3,500 students.
‘Other ways to achieve your goals’
Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris has offered his congratulations to students who received their first round CAO offers today.
“This has been an incredibly challenging year for students, and I’m glad to say that more than 4,600 additional places have been created in higher education for them,” Harris said.
“I hope that these places will help alleviate some of the pressure on those who wish to progress into higher education,” he said.
Harris added: “I want to take this opportunity to remind students that there are so many different pathways available as you prepare to take the next steps in your life. Education is a lifelong journey and there is a huge range of options for you to develop knowledge and skills, and achieve your full potential.”
The Minister said that PLC and apprenticeships “are just some of the options available”.
“I really want to encourage students to take some time to consider the pathways that suit you,” he said.
“Take a minute, breathe and look around. There is far more out there than you think, and it’s important to remember that there are other ways to achieve your goals.”
CAO Communications Officer Eileen Keleghan is asking applicants to carefully consider any offers received in today’s round.
“One of the common queries that we receive at the offers stage is around order of preference,” Keleghan said.
“Applicants who receive a lower preference offer can accept this offer and it will not prevent them from receiving an offer of a course higher up on their courses list in a later round should a place become available and they are deemed eligible,” she said.
“Those who have received an offer in this round should also consider the current offer carefully as it may be the only one they will receive.”
Round Two offers will be available to view on the CAO website from 10am on 20 September. The reply date by which Round Two offers must be accepted is 22 September at 3pm.
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Don’t panic if you don’t get the points for engineering. An apprenticeship is a great route in to professional engineering qualification. Some real world electrical, fitting or building experience under your belt when you graduate with your level 8.
What about the students who did their LC prior to 2020 and applying for courses and got no grade inflation they are 100% discriminated against!!! Shameful !
Absolutely ridiculous points for teaching. Plenty of potentially excellent school teachers cut out of the equation.
@Vonvonic: may be so but its supply and demand. The colleges don’t set the points. If there’s 100 places available and the top 100 who applied had 600 points then the points are 600. I think it’s important to remember LC points are not the be all and end all, and there are many methods to pursuing the career you wish had you not got the required points during CAO offers. Hopefully this is made aware to students who missed out, it doesn’t mean they cant be teachers or whatever other profession they wish to go in to, there are always other avenues available.
I’m very very lucky to have gone to college in 2006 because I did not get near those points. Seems like it’s gone mad. Time for more places in courses and more resources in universities to educate our young people. Only the very top tier of students are going to get any of them courses. University needs to be a realistic pathway for the majority of students not a minority.
@Ciarán FitzGerald: I would disagree with adding more places, what’s the point in the taxpayer in this country paying to train more teachers, for example, if there is no chance of a job at the end of it. We should be pushing more students into apprenticeships for a lot more than just construction jobs, it’s more relevant to employment than most university courses.
Was speaking to some students earlier on today, who were allowed see their written paper results from the L.C. All were potential Commerce students. We compared the marks they received last Friday to the marks they were given before the papers were sent to the Dept of Education, before their assessment. The average difference between each was minus 50pts per student that was deducted by the DoE i.e Papers corrected by teachers 550pts, DoE deducts an average of 50pts to give 500pts as L.C. result by downgrading a say H1 to a H5 or vice versa. EG On Commerce, last year in UCD – 521pts. This year – 555pts. The DoE reduced the % PTS each student got while the CAO. Equivalent to downgrading a student in one paper from a H1 to a H5 and the CAO raise the bar by 34pts for Commerce. These students were all in ‘private’ school. I have heard of 2 cases where two girls in a ‘public’ ( hate those phrases) school had their grades upgraded by the Dept, funnily enough both by 50pts, just like 2/3 years ago, when DoE they had to retract. My point is not Private v Public, my point is the lack of fairness in the system, the lack of places allocated at college and the ease at which the DoE can manipulate and discriminate at the same time. They may shout from the rooftops about record results but behind the wallpaper the cracks are widening quickly. Too many very clever young people are suffering unfairly and will probably have to repeat but even if they do fulfil their potential. At the stroke of a pen, the DoE, without evidence can throw these people on the scrap heap. I would like to hear your experiences.
@Barrycelona: The DoE have nothing to do with either marking the exams (the SEC) or the points (CAO). Points can’t be ‘deducted’. The points for a course are those received by the lowest successful applicant.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: Points were deducted through downgrading grades from say a H1 to a H3 etc All I know is what I was told. I don’t know the finer details of how the system works or who does what. What I do know is they arrived in their school and a teacher went through the papers with them. One girl got 540 on Friday last, 600 today Another 510 Friday 555 today both in private schools.In ‘ public school 373 to 425 and 490 to 530 ( both approx). I raise type of school only because there was a dispute some years back over students in private schools been downgraded more than ‘public’ schools and the DoE had to relent and readjust.
Doesn’t matter what the absolute points are, the top applicants for any particular course will get offered the places. That’s the way it has always been.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: You are making me feel like Simon Coveney. ‘ Shou look D have sorted this out sooner’ sort of thingy. I apologise! The bulk of what I said earlier still holds. My mistake was that I didn’t properly distinguish between Predictive and written results. Last Friday,bone of the girls got 500+ PTS in her L.C. Today they were allowed access their Predictive results. My understanding is that they were allowed to choose the better results of the two papers’ In this case, she was given 550+PTS in the predictive ‘ paper’. When I went to school, 550 was more than 500. Somewhere along the line, exactly how I don’t know, this girl and her friends were not given the opportunity to take the higher scores in the Predictive as opposed to the written. i.e. she was allocated H2 instead of a H1 etc and 500+ PTS. Given what I was told and I now have no reason to doubt them the predictive downgrades cost them, on average, 50pts, which is a massive figure. A friend of theirs from a ‘ public’ school ( sorry,hate that word) and a friend of hers were given roughly 50 point upgrades. The DoE from what I know has not addressed this discrepancy. I know of another girl who was hoping to do a ‘ higher end’ degree and she was downgraded by nearly 60pts. She is now, partly through her own fault, is missing out on college altogether, as of now. It saddens me that many young people’s dreams have being shattered at least for a year and on top of the hardship they have already gone through. I await a lot of explanations but am not planning to hold my breath for that long. Maybe we should ask Ms Zappone to investigate for the sake of equality. Cheers!!
My daughter sat her L.C. in 2020, but held off on applying for college place till this year, as she wanted to do a certain course, that she hadn’t included in her original CAO application, done a PLC course to stay in education, The points this year for the course she wanted increased by 110 pts, both at level 8 and level 7, while I understand the points system etc, it does seem mighty unfair that some of the increases are putting some students well outside points for their chosen course
Since there will be no predictive grades in 2022, does anyone think points will go down next year? There is a 40 point jump in the course my son wants to do for college, he is in 6th year and that certainly adds pressure to an already stressful year.
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