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This is a worrying time of year for students and parents with the Leaving Cert results due out tomorrow and college offers early next week. The half-forgotten exams way back in June once again loom large in students' minds as they worry about what they wrote or should have written or didn't mention.
But it's also a time for looking to the future. Most students are leaving second-level education behind and entering the adult world of further or higher education or training. For the 65,000 students who sat the Leaving Cert, their parents and teachers, a new language packed with acronyms - CAO, DIT, RTCs, NUI, PLC - is born. The uninitiated will hear people talk mysteriously about Round 1 offers, moving up your list of choices but not down, waiting for the next round of offers, the clearing process, the Dearing report, maintenance grants . . .
This is a week for students to take time out and think about their course and career choices. Many CAO applicants will have forgotten the order in which they listed their choice of courses last January. Others will have sent in a change-of-mind slip later and are now confused about where they stand. Students need to get all their CAO documentation together and study it carefully.
It's too late to change your mind about the courses and colleges you have applied for but, for most students, there will still be choices to be made. If you are not offered your first preference course - the one that topped your list - you must consider whether you will accept another offer.
With all the talk of the brutality and bluntness of the points system, there is one student-friendly feature built into the system. This allows you to accept an offer in Round 1 without affecting your chances of an offer in Round 2.
The CAO rule-of-thumb is that you can move up the ladder of course choices but not down. For many students this affords a good degree of flexibility. There are two independent lists - the degree and cert/diploma list - each with 10 choices listed in order of preference. So, you could be in the happy position of receiving not one but two offers. Obviously, you can accept only one.
Sadly, each year, there are students who will not receive any offer. This year, about 34,000 places are available for the 62,581 CAO applicants. So, each applicant has roughly a one-in-two chance of securing a place. This may not seem very reassuring but, each year, far more offers are made than the actual number of places available. Last year, three out of four applicants received an offer of a college place.
And there were 27 courses which took all qualified applicants. The AQA acronym appearing after a courses code in the list of points means that all applicants with the minimum requirements were offered a place. Last year, most of these courses were in regional technical colleges so the minimum requirements were five passes in the Leaving Cert.
The problem for many students is that these courses were certificates not degrees. But, the degree-obsessed student would do well to remember that certs can and do lead to diplomas and degrees. If you spread your course choice widely in January, filling out both lists, you have maximised your chances of getting a college offer.
About half of the 65,881 students registered to sit the Leaving Cert in June will go on to third-level education. Parents thinking back to their own Leaving Cert days will remember the time when third-level education was only for the chosen few. There has been a huge increase in the number of third-level places available. Each year, new courses begin or established courses expand. Six years ago, there were 26,762 third-level places while this year the Department of Education estimates that about 33,750 places will be available.
Of course, all is not lost if you do not get a place in third-level education. There are almost as many training and further education opportunities outside the CAO as there are third level places within it. In effect, adding up all the options, there is a place for almost everyone who sat the Leaving Cert this year. One of the biggest success stories in Irish education has been the explosion of places in Post Leaving Cert colleges. About 16,000 students will find places in this vibrant sector which aims to prepare them for work but which also has links to third-level. There is no centralised applications system equivalent to the CAO for this sector so Points Race will keep you updated on vacancies, application procedures and interview dates for these courses.
The national tourism training body, CERT, has already offered 2,500 places to school-leavers to train for careers in areas such as bar service, restaurant service and professional cookery. TEAGASC will recruit over 1,000 students into agricultural and horticultural training courses while FAS expects to take on about 4,000 apprentices this year.
There are also 875 places on the new college-associated nursing diploma, which operates its own centralised applications system. It's also expected that about 3,000 students will opt for private third-level colleges in the republic.
Of the 65,881 students sitting the Leaving Cert this year, 4,674 were repeating. This is a viable option for many students who need to gain extra points for particular courses. Of course, there are no guarantees but determination and a year's maturity can pay dividends.
Each Year, about 3,000-4,000 Irish students go to UK colleges. The proposals in the Dearing report, which allow for the re-introduction of fees of up to £1,000 a year, will not affect this year's college entrants, even if they decide to defer their place until next year.
UK students got their A level results last Thursday and their college offers season is in full swing. If you have had a conditional offer from a UK college and your Leaving Cert results fulfil the conditions, you should ring the college admissions tutor directly. The clearing process, which allows students to apply for vacant places, has also begun with vacancies advertised in British national papers.
Additional research by Catherine Foley.