College Choice: How to review and appeal against your Leaving Cert results

Following the release of the Leaving Cert results yesterday, students and parents emailed their queries to The Irish Times helpdesk www.irishtimes.com/results, which will be open until next Wednesday.

Having fallen short of their anticipated grades many inquired about the viewing of script process. Some students and parents, in the excitement of opening the envelope containing their results, seem to be unaware that the form to seek to view scripts is contained in this envelope, alongside the result sheet.

This free service offers all students the opportunity to view one or more of their marked examination scripts, and thus see how the marking scheme has been applied to their work in each subject and question they attempted in June.

This facility will assist you in deciding whether or not to lodge an appeal against a result. With the exception of external candidates, all applications for viewing of marked scripts should be made through your school. The closing date for receipt of completed application forms in schools is next Tuesday, August 19th.

External candidates, who took the exam outside a second level school, should follow the instructions that accompany their provisional statement of results. To assist you in making up your mind as to whether to pay the fee of €40 per subject, you will have access to the marking schemes for every paper and will be able to see how they were applied in your case. Viewing of scripts will take place in your school on Friday 29th and Saturday 30th August.

On holiday

You have to be present to view the script and may be accompanied by one other person. Some visitors to our website were inquiring as to whether they could get a parent to view the scripts on their behalf, as they were going abroad for a holiday with their friends to celebrate their results. Unfortunately, viewing a script in these circumstances is not possible; as you must be present yourself. You still have the option of requesting a recheck and paying the €40 per subject. All appeal applications to have a script re-marked must be with the

State Examinations Commission

by 5pm on September 3rd.

Given that approximately 20 per cent of appeals are successful each year, students who find themselves 1 per cent shy of the next grade up are statistically more likely to achieve an upgrade than one who is 4 per cent adrift. The only way you can know your percentage mark in each of your Leaving Certificate subjects, is to view all your scripts over the three sessions available on the weekend August 29th/30th.

Any administrative errors can be rectified within a few working days between the SEC and the CAO, and such students can immediately have their CAO offers revised where appropriate.

College place

The results of appeals will be issued to all schools in mid October. If your grade in one or more subjects is improved or in very rare cases reduced, the CAO will be advised immediately the results are released by the SEC in October, and any college place you would have been entitled too, if you had those points now will then be offered to you, no matter what course you may have accepted in the meantime.

The college may not be in a position to allow you to start on this course in late October, as you will have already missed half of the first semester, but you will be guaranteed your place on the course for the 2015-2016 academic year.

Even though the numbers of those failing maths at all three levels has dropped considerably to 3,781, we still had a number of inquiries from students in this situation. If you are one of the unfortunate 645 higher level candidates to fail maths, a number of colleges including the DIT (Level 8 Engineering programmes) and NUI Galway (Engineering and IT programmes) Wednesday 20th August, UL (Science and Engineering programmes) Thursday 21st August, and NUI Maynooth (Engineering Programmes) Friday 22nd August, offer second change higher level Maths exams, to enable you to access your level 8 courses.

CIT and WIT have introduced a special maths exam on Tuesday 19th and Friday 29th August respectively, for any students who have already applied to either college and have failed maths at any level.

NUI Galway offers a five day free preparatory course from today until Tuesday next. The DIT offer one on Monday and Tuesday 18th and 19th next week prior to their exam on the 20th and WIT offer their revision programme from Monday 25th to Thursday 28th August. To book a place on the preparation programmes or the examinations themselves, contact the colleges directly. Tomorrow: Additional places offered by the CAO, how this works? What courses will see points requirements increase this year?