CAO offers: Colleges make concerted effort to minimise random selection for courses

The decisions taken by Minister for Education Norma Foley relating to the marking and grading of the 58,056 Leaving Cert 2022 students and specifically the 48,592 who applied for college places through the CAO this year has had a big effect on the pattern of points requirements required to secure a place on some programmes.

The State Examinations Commission (SEC) revealed last week that the additional marks added to students’ original marks secured following the correction of their papers were spread across a range from 11 marks down to 2.7, with the weaker results getting the highest numbers of additional marks.

If you look at a selection of courses in UCD for example, you can see that the largest increase in CAO points requirements are in programmes in the 400 points range with far smaller increases recorded in higher points courses.

Humanities (DN530) at 442 is up 45 points, Modern Languages (DN541) at 380 is up 60 and BA Joint Honours (DN520) is at 400, up 19 points. Contrast that with Veterinary Medicine 601* and Physiotherapy 601 unchanged from 2021 or Radiography 556 down 10 from 566 in 2021.

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Given that the SEC increased grades in over 50 per cent of cases this year, and that over ten thousand applicants in this year’s competition held high points secured in 2020 and 2021, it is not surprising that high points requirements persist across the board this year.

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Colleges have however made a concerted effort to minimise the number of courses where random selection occurs. The overall number of programmes at Level 8 where random selection occurs is down from 75 to 50.

In Trinity College nine single honours courses were subject to random selection in 2022, down from 17 in Round One 2021. These include Dental Science (TR052) and Management Science and Information Systems Studies (TR034), both at 625 points and random selection (unchanged from last year).

Others at random selection are: TR015 Philosophy, Political Science, Economics and Sociology 613* (unchanged from 2021), TR053 Physiotherapy 590* (unchanged), TR055 Radiation Therapy 556* (down from 577), TR056 Human Health and Disease 601* (unchanged), TR060 Biological and Biomedical Sciences 578* (unchanged), TR072 Pharmacy 613* (unchanged) and TR080 Global Business 601* (down from 613*).

Overall, the Central Applications Office (CAO) offered places to 57,296 applicants. These offers consist of 51,807 Level 8 course offers and 34,087 Level 7/6 course offers.

A total of 27,947 (54 per cent) Level 8 offers are for the applicants first preference course, and 42,268 (82 per cent) Level 8 offers are for one of their top three preferences.

A total of 30,354 (89 per cent) Level 7/6 offers are for the applicants first preference course, and 33,559 (98 per cent) Level 7/6 offers are for one of their top three preferences.

Applicants who do not receive an offer may wish to check the ‘Available places’ facility which reopens shortly on CAO website. For more information on the CAO offer and acceptance process or the available places facility, applicants should visit cao.ie

Central Applications Office

The Central Applications Office processes applications for undergraduate courses in Irish Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Decisions on admissions to undergraduate courses are made by the HEIs who instruct CAO to make offers to successful candidates.

As previously reported, Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris funded over a thousand additional places in 2022 over and above the four thousand places added in 2020 and 2021. Obviously, where there are more places available on a course’s points should drop, unless of course demand also increases by a significant degree.

This may well be the reason that Medicine in both UCD at 743 and in Trinity are up 2 to 745 this year, even though eleven places were added to each of the five undergraduate programmes. Conversely, where demand dropped substantially this year, as occurred in nursing, CAO points requirements followed suit. General Nursing in UCD (DN450) is down 11 to 451 and in Trinity (TR091) from 462 to 434.

Where there has been an expansion of places, as has occurred in disciplines related to the environment, the increase in choice has led to a softening of CAO points requirements in existing courses.

One factor driving demand for places has been the huge increase in application numbers from students living in EU countries in continental Europe. This may go some way to explaining why the overall number of applicants to Trinity college have increased by 45 per cent since 2019.

Many of these EU applicants whose CAO points score is a conversion from their own school leaving examination received offers in Round One yesterday. But, due to the extremely late timing of this year’s CAO offers many of these applicants will have already committed to other colleges and these places will be reoffered to those with lowed CAO points scores in round two and subsequent rounds.