Nearly 5,000 CAO applicants to get college offers today

A further 4,820 applicants to the CAO for places in colleges for the coming academic year will receive offers of places on courses on Thursday morning.

A total of 3,950 applicants will receive an offer of a place on an honours degree programme (level 8) and 2,213 will receive one at higher certificate/ordinary degree (levels 6/7). Some of the applicants will receive an offer at more than one level.

The offers will be available to view online at www.cao.ie from 10am.

Successful applicants will also receive an email and a text message, if they have selected this option on this online application record, with details of their offer.

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Those receiving offers this morning include applicants who are not competing with those awaiting 2021 Leaving Certificate examination grades, or who are assessed on other criteria.

The applicants who fall into this category include:

• Those who are being offered a place on the four-year graduate entry medicine programme;

• Additional mature applicants to those who received their offer in the initial round of offers at the beginning of July;

• Additional deferred and access applicants;

• Applicants presenting QQI FET/FETAC (Post Leaving Certificate) qualifications for consideration for entry to courses where universities and institutes of technology have reserved a quota of places for QQI FET (PLC) applicants.

The reply date by which those receiving offers on Thursday must accept their offer is August 10th at 3pm.

Speaking about the offer process, CAO communications officer Eileen Keleghan said: “We urge mature, deferred, graduate entry medicine, and access applicants to log in to their CAO accounts today to check if they have received a Round Zero offer.

“QQI FET/FETAC applicants who applied for a course with a quota for QQI FET applicants should also check their account.

“Offers must be accepted by 3 pm on Tuesday next, August 10th. Failure to accept an offer by the reply date will result in the offer being cancelled,” she said.

Demand for places

To date, a total of 14,071 offers have been issued by the CAO in Round A, made at the beginning of July and Round Zero on Thursday, to a total of 11,116 applicants.

Round One offers will be issued on Tuesday, September 7th to the successful applicants from among the tens of thousands of applicants who sat the Leaving Cert in June 2021 and received assessed grades from their teachers, plus the 8,000-plus applicants who went through the Leaving Cert process in 2020, and similar numbers from Leaving Cert 2019 and previous years of those aged under 23 who are seeking a place in college this year.

Given the uncertainty regarding the numbers of additional places which Minister for Further Education Simon Harris will be able to create, before the main round of offers is made on September 7th, and crucially whether he will be able to do so in the faculties and courses where demand is at its most intense, there is as yet no way of knowing what the CAO points requirements will be for such courses.

Colleges have previously indicated that the creation of additional places in such programmes is a long term project, requiring sustained investment by the State which has been markedly absent since the previous economic crash in 2009.

Those fortunate enough to receive an offer in the next round may view them online from 2pm on September 7th.

Successful applicants will also receive offer notification by email and text message if they have selected this option. There will be no postal offer notices.

The reply date for Round One offers is September 13th at 3pm.