4,000 mature students set to receive CAO ‘round zero’ offers

Most Leaving Cert students due to receive third level offers next month

More than 4,000 mature students are set to receive Central Applications Office offers (CAO) for third-level courses on Thursday. Photograph: Cyril Byrne
More than 4,000 mature students are set to receive Central Applications Office offers (CAO) for third-level courses on Thursday. Photograph: Cyril Byrne

More than 4,000 mature students are set to receive Central Applications Office offers (CAO) for third-level courses on Thursday.

Many of these “round zero” offers will go to those completing further education courses, graduate entry medicine applicants, and access students as well as those who have deferred places.

The CAO is due to issue a total of 5,357 course offers to just over 4,300 applicants which will be available to view online from 6am.

Successful applicants will also receive a paper offer notice by post, email and a text message (if they have selected this option) with details of their offer.

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CAO communications officer Eileen Keleghan urged all mature, deferred, and other applicants in the categories to log in to their CAO accounts today to check if they have received an offer as soon as possible.

“Offers must be accepted by 5:15pm on Wednesday next, August 7th. Failure to accept an offer by the reply date will result in the offer being cancelled,” she said.

The big day for most Leaving Cert students will be on Thursday, August 15th, when round one offers will be available to view online from 2pm.

This is earlier than usual on foot of a number of changes aimed at speeding up the process for allocating third level places.

These changes flow from the Rebecca Carter ruling, in which the High Court found that students should be able to take up a third level place immediately on foot of a successful appeal to their exam results.

This year, successful round one students will receive offer notification by email and text message if they have selected this option. The deadline to reply for round one offers is August 23rd at 5:15 pm. Round two offers will be available to view online from 28 August at 10am.

Carl O'Brien

Carl O'Brien

Carl O'Brien is Education Editor of The Irish Times. He was previously chief reporter and social affairs correspondent