My daughter was delighted with her Leaving Cert results last Friday and looks likely to get her first choice at University of Galway. However, she is increasingly anxious about the lack of accommodation. Her third choice is much closer to our home in Donegal, at the Letterkenny campus of Atlantic Technological University. Is there any way she can pass on her first CAO choice and accept one lower down her list?
I’m afraid there is no way for your daughter to change the order of her course choices. The last date by which she could have done so was July 1st last.
The rules of the CAO are explicit: an applicant will always be offered the highest course choice on their list for which they meet the published course requirements.
Your daughter will have until Tuesday next – September 5th – to accept the relevant course. If she does not, the offer will lapse and she cannot be offered any other course, assuming the offer she receives is her first choice.
The CAO will publish a list of courses in the coming days that colleges have failed to fill through the first round of offers. However, I think it would be foolhardy in the extreme to select one of them just to attend college this year.
There are also a range of courses still open for application under a pilot initiative by Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris, where students will start a university degree programme in a further education facility and progress to the university campus in years two or three to complete the degree. Details of these pilot programmes on offer in your region are available online (www.nto.ie).
What else could she do? Another option is that your daughter could write immediately to University of Galway when she receives her offer seeking to defer her place for 12 months. She will be granted a deferral and can take the place up in 2024.
She can work over the coming year while living at home to raise the funds to pay for accommodation in Galway next year.
Alternatively, she could reapply to the CAO after November this year, placing the Letterkenny course as her first choice; she would seem highly likely to receive an offer this time next year.
It is ironic that at a time when the range of opportunities open to those seeking educational advancement has never been greater, that affordable accommodation for those who secure courses a long distance from home has all but disappeared.
Maybe it is time to change the advice we give students in terms of their CAO course choices and opt for courses away from home only if they have secured affordable accommodation in advance.
