Every year, there is understandable anxiety as tens of thousands wait to see whether or not they got that first-round CAO offer – ideally their top choice – for college. And, inevitably, there is disappointment. Options are mulled. Students look at courses overseas or perhaps at repeating the Leaving Cert exams. Exam scripts are checked, appeals are put in and circulation is cut off as students tightly cross their fingers with hope for Round Two, Round Three and beyond.
This year there has been a very significant development in how people go to college, as the once strictly delineated boundaries between further and higher education become ever-more blurred.
So, just what do all these things mean for students? If you didn’t get your CAO course of choice (or any), what are your options, and what are your alternatives?
CAO timeline
It’s good advice to check your scripts, ideally with your teacher – most are willing to look at your paper with you – and apply for an upgrade if you think you might deserve it. If successful, your points will rise and it may make you eligible for the college course you wanted. In the meantime, this is the timeline of CAO rounds:
Students deserve a reformed Leaving Cert that prepares them for the modern world
My daughter wants to study engineering at college. I’m not sure it’s right for her
Leaving Cert students may face single English exam, with project in fifth year
‘We need extra time now’: Students with additional needs call for State exam changes
August 31st – available places facility opens, allowing any student who meets minimum entry requirements to access a college course that has unfilled spaces
September 5th, 3pm – closing date for acceptance of CAO Round One offers
September 11th, 2pm – Round Two offers available online. Places become available on courses where students do not accept their Round One CAO offer, or an offer in a later CAO round (perhaps choosing further education, study abroad or a level six/seven course)
September 13th, 3pm – Round Two acceptances closing date
September 19th, 10am – Round Three offers available online and via email/text notification
September 21st, 3pm – Round Three acceptances closing date
September 26th, 10am – Round Four offers available online and via email/text notification
September 28th, 3pm – Round Four acceptances closing date
October 3rd, 10am – Round Five offers available online and via email/text notification
October 5th, 3pm – Round Five acceptances closing date
Flexible provision
From September, for the first time, students will be able to enrol in one of 23 degree courses in a further education institution before then progressing to a higher education institution – a college or university – to complete their degree.
Calling this flexible provision, somewhat hyperbolically, “the single biggest transformation to education in decades”, Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris said it was the start of an effort to change the system and, ultimately, a move away from the intense focus on CAO points.
Guaranteeing progression from further to higher education, as long as the learner reaches a required standard, students gain formal recognition of the learning they have already completed as they go along.
Students can apply directly for one of about 500 places, outside the CAO system, through a portal run by the National Tertiary Office through the Higher Education Authority.
The courses on offer include business, ICT, arts, health and welfare, and engineering, manufacturing and construction. Students will begin in an Education and Training Board college before transferring to a technological university or an institute of technology.
This first tranche of programmes is a pilot but it is likely to be extended in the coming years.
See nto.hea.ie for a list of courses and to apply.
Further and higher education
In the past decade successive governments have placed a stronger emphasis on further education options. The entire apprenticeship system has been overhauled, with options such as auctioneering, ICT, recruitment and hospitality existing alongside more traditional craft apprenticeship options such as motor mechanics, plumbing and carpentry (see Apprenticeship.ie for more information).
Post-Leaving Cert (PLC) courses provide both useful skills and a stepping stone to third level, and traineeships are preparing a new generation for immediate employment in high-demand skills areas.
The CAO was no longer the only game in town, with even high-achieving students who may have missed out on courses like science, humanities, law, nursing or engineering enrolling in pre-university courses where, if they secured enough distinctions, they would be in with a chance of getting into the college course they wanted.
FetchCourses.ie is a very comprehensive portal that helps students to explore all their options, while ThisIsFET.ie provides more information on what can be achieved through higher education.
Your other options
- Repeating the exams: Not a decision to be taken lightly. Generally only worth doing if you feel you didn’t perform as well as you should and that you have more to give the second time round.
- Studying abroad: See Eunicas.ie or Erudera.com for more information on studying abroad, including in continental European universities that teach through English and where fees, living costs and eligibility requirements may be lower.
