CAO applications open soon, but my son has no idea what to choose. Can you help?

My eldest is sitting the Leaving Cert next June and his school has advised us that the CAO application process will open this week. As a first-time parent, I’ve no idea how to help ensure he makes the right course choices or completes the application process properly. Can you offer any advice?

You’re correct: the Central Applications Office (CAO), which processes college offers for undergraduate courses in Irish higher-education institutions, opens to applicants on November 6th.

If I have one piece of advice for parents, it’s to ensure your child reads the 2024 online CAO Handbook carefully. It will give them the best chance of successfully navigating their way through the process.

The digital version is available online (the physical handbook is no longer distributed to students in printed format) and it allows users to create an account, save courses of interest, read all-important instructions and share their handbook with parents, guidance counsellors and friends.

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It is very important to remember, though, that registering a CAO handbook account is not the same as registering with the CAO.

After reading the handbook instructions, your son should log on to cao.ie from November 6th and simply click on “apply”. He will be asked to provide his personal details, which will take less than five minutes. He will immediately be issued with his unique CAO number.

He can return to the CAO site over the coming months up to the February 1st deadline to enter his initial course choices.

It is also vital to remind your son to deal promptly with any correspondence from the CAO. This includes the “statement of application record” which is sent by email to all applicants before the end of May.

This is aimed at ensuring applicants’ information has been recorded correctly. He should also check the correspondence section of his CAO account for any further verification messages during the summer months.

I can’t emphasise enough how important this is. Every year some students miss out on round one offers due to errors or omissions, or fail to spot an important message that arrived during the summer.

The initial application costs €30, up to January 20th; thereafter, it climbs to €45.

There is no great urgency in finalising CAO course choices until after the end of the Leaving Cert exams in late June 2024. However, it is important to identify any courses marked as “restricted”. They normally involve programmes with a portfolio or performance element – such as some art courses – which are assessed in March/April each year. The initial closing date for these courses is February 1st.

There are also important deadlines for access schemes. They provide a pathway to courses on lower points requirements for applicants with disabilities or from disadvantaged backgrounds. Further information on deadlines for applications and correspondence to the Dare (Disability Access Route to Education) and Hear (Higher Education Access Route) programmes is available online.