Almost six out of 10 CAO applicants have secured their first-choice college courses this year, an increase on last year when just over half did so.
A total of 59 per cent secured a first choice, up 5 per cent on last year, while 85 per cent received one of their top three course preferences, up 4 per cent on last year.
CAO entry points reflect supply and demand for individual courses, as well as the grades achieved by applicants.
This year, points dropped across 60 per cent of courses, most notably in medicine, nursing and many other health courses due to a combination of additional college places and a post-Covid fall-off in applications.
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There were points rises across a number of course areas such as science, business and the environment.
The number of courses on random selection – where colleges use a lottery to select candidates – also fell significantly, down from almost 50 last year to fewer than 20 this year.
Among the courses affected by random selection this year include medicine at RCSI and University of Galway; biomedical science at UCC and MTU; and pharmacy at Trinity.
One of the courses where a lottery is being used – Trinity’s management science and information management systems studies – is on the maximum points requirement of 625.
In all, the CAO on Wednesday issued a total of 57,980 college offers to applicants. The majority were for honours degree, or level-eight courses. Offers must be accepted by 3pm on Tuesday, September 5th.
Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris welcomed the increase in students who received first preference offers this year.
He said it was linked to “investment in college places in particular on courses where there is high demand” over recent years and colleges responding to demand in popular courses.
Mr Harris said he believed it was time for Leaving Cert grades to begin to return towards normal “over a number of years”. He said he would discuss how this might be achieved with Minister for Education Norma Foley and her officials.
Ms Foley was non-committal when asked last week if grades would being to return to pre-pandemic norms from next year.
The drop in points for medicine was notable, meanwhile, given that it is traditionally among the most sought-after college courses.
Points for medicine fell at UCC (-4 to was 732 points), RCSI (-7 to 734 points), Trinity (-4 to 741 points), UCD (-7 to 736 points) and University of Galway (-7 to 729 points).
This is likely a reflection of the fact that 120 additional medicine places have been created between last year and this year.
In addition, there were significant points drops for nursing where more than 200 additional courses places have been provided this year.
For example, points for general nursing fell in UCD (-48 points to 403), ATU in Letterkenny (-48 points to 360) and Dundalk Institute of Technology (-35 points to 380).
There were also points reductions across many commerce courses. For example, points fell for commerce at UCD (-9 to 545), for business, economic and social studies at Trinity (-21 to 555 points, on random selection), business and management at TU Dublin (-25 points to 451) and business, while business and accounting at Maynooth University was up slightly (+1 to 403 points).
It was a mixed story for arts – still one of the most popular areas – where courses were up and down this year. Points remained steady at UCC and University of Galway and fell in UCD (- 22 to 378), although its humanities course increased slightly (+2 to 444 points).
Teacher education courses were also an area where application numbers were down. In primary teaching, for example, points were down at DCU (-19 to 487) and Maynooth University (-42 to 498 points).
The CAO has reminded applicants that offers must be accepted by 3pm on Tuesday next.
