Thousands of students across the State will be able to find out whether they have received a first-round offer by accessing the CAO website from 6 a.m. next Monday.
In a move aimed at speeding up the first round process, the CAO has decided to make the results available online a day earlier than in previous years.
This means students will no longer need to wait a day between the publication of the cut-off points and the issuing of formal offers through the post the next day.
They will then be able to accept any place they are offered by entering their CAO number, course code and date of birth on the CAO website, www.cao.ie.
Anybody receiving more than one offer may make several acceptances. But each acceptance automatically cancels the previous one, as students can only have one current acceptance in the system at a time.
According to a spokesman for the CAO, approximately 12,000 people used the online service last year. It expects "at least the same amount" of students to do so again this year. "This has been done so that applicants would be kept waiting for the minimum amount of time," he said. "The whole idea is that they would be able to accept places online."
Mr Brian Mooney, of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors, said the new system meant any student who was unsure if they fulfilled the entry criteria of a course, or who may have only reached the cut-off point for a course, would be able to find out immediately whether their application had been successful. This would cut out much of the uncertainty surrounding the process.
"Yesterday, admissions officers from all over Ireland met with the CAO to determine the number of places to be offered in each course in round one," he said. "From 6 a.m. this Monday, the results of this will be available online." Mr Mooney said the results will only be available online for round one. Round two offers will be posted out on Thursday, September 2nd, to arrive on Friday.
Any student without an Internet connection should go to their local library or school to access their offers, he said.
The Irish Times will be publishing the full list of the cut-off points for all courses next Monday.