If you put in a wrong course code the computer will presume that is what you want and will not treat it as an error, so be careful, advises Emmet Oliver
Doh! It being exam year most students should get used to making mistakes. Mistakes in maths, English, Irish, history. Mistakes at home, in school, at lunchtime, late at night.
It is one of those years. Time to be all too human. But the CAO form is one of those little tests where with a modicum of thought and patience errors can be cut out, whether you choose the paper or online version.
If you apply yourself you can at least make last year's students blush. Almost 17 per cent of them made an error in their original CAO form.
There were 10,127 applicants who made at least one error in their course choice. One of the surprising findings was that 8,359 applicants applied for non-existent courses. This usually involved putting down a code for a course which was not offered under the CAO system or not offered by anyone.
However, it is best to approach the form calmly because it is far from life or death.
If you supply defective information on the form, CAO - if they spot it - will return it and ask you to pay €7 for the pleasure of correcting the errors.
The advantage of the online method is that errors are immediately rectified. If you put in a course code which does not exist the computer will not accept it.
But if you put in a course code which does correspond to an actual course, the computer will presume that is what you want and will not treat it as an error, so be careful when putting in the codes.
Also after you fill out the form and send it to CAO by February 1st (5.15 p.m. to be precise) you will get a statement of course choices in early March and a fuller statement in May.
You can check these to see if you selected the actual courses you wanted. If you are unhappy you can change everything, using the change of mind facility which is available also from May.
However while there are plenty of get-out clauses, it is best to get the form right the first time. It means you can send it off to CAO in Galway, forget about it, and get on with your studies.
There are two parts to the form. Part A applies to most applicants, those doing the Leaving Cert, while part B is for special category applicants.
The first section of Part A simply requires your date of birth, name, address and other personal information. Make sure you put down your home address, not your school address.
The most interesting section is overleaf. This is where you are presented with five boxes, with 10 choices in each box. Each one of these represents a space for a course. So you can theoretically choose from 50 courses - 10 degree courses, 10 certificate/diploma courses and 30 nursing courses.
Because most students will be tackling the form in January they will have little idea of their eventual grades in the Leaving Cert. They will not even have the rough guidance of the mocks.
So choose on the basis of what you would like to do, not on the basis of your likely score in September - you can change your choices later if necessary.
If you are certain of what you want, mark them clearly on the form. Double check the codes you are writing down with the CAO handbook, which should become your dog-eared bible for the next few months.
If you plan to apply online at www.cao.ie you must have a payment sequence number. This comes with the application payment form. Even though you are applying online you still have to pay your CAO fee (€20 for online applicants) to the bank.
When applying online you need to include this sequence number and have the course codes you have selected beside you.
Make sure you print out a receipt at the end of the online process. This is the only proof you have, until CAO contact you, that you have applied online.
