COLLEGE CHOICE:BY NOW the vast majority of the third-level places offered through the Central Applications Office last Monday have been accepted or deferred for a year.
Where student demand is less than anticipated, the remaining places will be offered at lower points, next Thursday, to those next on the list of qualified applicants in round two of the CAO offer process.
Since Tuesday last, those who did not receive a satisfactory offer in round one have been considering the vacant places list; these are offers of places on courses which are still unfilled.
For many – especially those who made something of a mess of their CAO application – this is their sole remaining option.
The case for change
Essentially, students are selecting third-level courses that they did not consider in the first instance. Is this in the long-term interests of either the students in question or the labour market they will eventually enter?
Because of this difficulty, I support the call by this newspaper’s Education Editor Seán Flynn for radical change of the CAO process to allow students to amend their CAO record following the publication of the Leaving Cert results.
This process would have to be managed very carefully. There would have to be a “cooling off” period of two days after the exam results are published to allow students take stock.
It should then be possible for them to make amendments to their CAO record over that weekend, taking into account their actual exam results.
College admissions officers could meet at the CAO offices on the Friday after publication of the Leaving Certificate results. They could assess the number of places to offer on each course. With that information in hand – and the amendments made to students’ applications, which could close at midnight on the Sunday – the CAO could process the offers on the Monday and issue offers to students on Tuesday or Wednesday. Given the vast majority of students accept their places online, there is ample time to complete this process by the existing acceptance date, which is 5.15pm the following Monday.
Objectors who claim that giving students a choice to amend their application record after getting their Leaving Cert results would lead to unsuitable choices are underestimating students.
Most students leaving school today have the right to vote and engage in determining who governs us and what policies they should implement. Surely after a few days’ reflection we can trust them to decide the most appropriate college course to select in light of their actual examination results?
If we implemented this change to our admissions system, we would see fewer drop-outs from college in first year, resulting in major savings for families and the Department of Education.
Non-CAO options:
Enrolment on Post Leaving Cert (PLC) courses in CDVEC are continuing, and not many places remain. Traditional courses in media, business studies and childcare are still popular, and there is an increasing interest in pre-nursing courses. There has been a resurgence in demand for Repeat Leaving Certificate places, and this opportunity is now available in Ringsend Technical Institute. There are still some places on new PLC courses in enterprise and business studies in Ringsend and in Coláiste Éanna, Cabra. Those interested should contact their local VEC college directly, see www.cdvec.ie or call freephone 1800-244080 to get advice on specific courses.
Brian Mooney is guidance counsellor in Oatlands College, Dublin
Series concluded