When you log on to the State Examinations Commissions (SEC) portal to discover what grades you have been awarded, you will be full of excitement and anticipation. After six years at second level, you are about to discover the fruits of your labour.
Stay calm and ensure that you are clear about how to interpret the grades in front of you as they relate to college entry requirements, for CAO in Ireland, European universities, or UCAS courses in Northern Ireland and Britain.
If it is CAO points you are counting, you are only likely to do this exercise once in a lifetime, and it is easy to get it wrong and cause yourself and your parents unnecessary anxiety.
So, take a few minutes to carefully determine your score. You should have a points chart to hand, and sites such as careersportal.ie have features to enable you to enter your grades and receive a CAO points calculation.
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No matter what the outcome, it is worth remembering that success comes in many forms.
For one student, a score of 560 points may be devastating in terms of studying veterinary medicine at UCD; for another, 250 points may represent a huge achievement. Remember, you count the best six scores you have achieved across all subjects.
If you did the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme (LCVP) and your score for the module is better than your lowest of the six scores, you can include the LCVP instead. If you got at least a H6 in higher-level math’s, you add 25 to the normal points score attached to the grade you achieved.
There are some slight variations in how points are calculated by some third-level colleges, and all such variations are clearly outlined in the CAO handbook. It is available online at cao.ie.
Will my CAO points score secure me my desired courses?
There is a widespread misperception among the general public and many students that points are determined by the colleges and that you aim to reach that target over the two years of your Leaving Cert studies.
The Ucas system in the UK works on that basis; if you meet the target grades the college or course director in question set you, then you secure your place.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the CAO points required to secure the last place offered the previous year was usually a good indicator of whether your hopes would turn into a CAO offer. For the past four years, students taking higher-level papers under the revised arrangements, including grades adjustments, secured far higher marks than the 2019 or previous years’ classes.
How this year’s points requirements will play out will not be known until next Wednesday, when the CAO releases its offers, but it would be prudent to expect that the CAO points required for the most-sought-after courses will stay in or around 2023 levels.
Is the process fair to all college applicants?
This is the key challenge for both Minister for Education Norma Foley and the State Examinations Commission. Can they bring the Leaving Cert grade profile back to pre-Covid levels slowly enough in the coming years to not disadvantage the students sitting the Leaving Cert in 2025 and in the subsequent three to four years?
At a distinct disadvantage over recent years have been the small number of CAO applicants who sat the Leaving Cert before 2020 and in the years immediately preceding it, who have had no benefit from the easier papers set in 2021, 2022, 2023 and now in 2024, which reflected lost tuition time for these year groups. These former students are stuck with the results they achieved when they sat the pre 2020 Leaving Cert.
Some have been bitterly disappointed not to receive an offer in the past four years and have applied again this year. They will now have passed their 23rd birthday and can apply for a place on their preferred course under the mature applicant criteria and escape from the round one process.
Other options
There are alternatives to the CAO worth considering. Ireland has a growing system of further education and training (FET), consisting of an extensive range of post-Leaving Cert (PLC) courses along with enhanced and expanding apprenticeship programmes where ongoing training and part-time study are built into the job.
These routes from school to further education provide many opportunities for the tens of thousands of young learners who wish to develop their abilities and skills in a way that is best suited to them. Indeed, many courses ultimately lead to a third-level qualification.
For a significant cohort of those leaving secondary schools each year, the option of studying for a QQI level-five or six award at the local FE college or starting an apprenticeship, which mixes working in employment alongside study, is by far the most appropriate choice, even if a CAO place happens to be available to them.
Further education courses are provided in Education and Training Board colleges throughout the country. Courses are designed to consolidate the learning of those who excel in disciplines ranging from IT and science to business and art.
Up to 20 per cent of places in courses with the highest CAO points are reserved for graduates of FE courses each year and see applicants securing places and thriving in those courses, even though 12 months previously they might have been hundreds of CAO points short of the required entry score.
Other FE courses are designed to prepare students to enter directly into high-quality employment, in vocational/employment-focused courses such as pre-Garda/pre-paramedic, childcare, hairdressing, animal healthcare, etc. immediately on completion of their one or two-year programmes.
More information on CAO-linked PLC/FE courses is available from careersportal.ie while details of every PLC/FE course in the country are available through the qualifax.ie website.
Tertiary degree Offerings
In 2023, the then Minister and now Taoiseach Simon Harris launched a new initiative in which applicants can apply for one of a wide range of degree programmes which are still available up to this September, in which students will start year one and, in some cases, the second year of their degree in their local further education college and then move on to a university to complete the qualification. The key difference to the previous FE model is that progression is guaranteed from day one once exams are successfully completed along the way. Applications are still open for these programmes. Details at nto.ie.
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