Some schools show a progression rate to third level of more than 100 per cent. This is because the figures include post-Leaving Certificate students who progressed to a college course, first-year repeats and mature students who sat the Leaving Cert in years prior to 2013, as well as students who attended more than one school during their time in post-primary education.
Only 60 per cent of this year’s college registrations are of students who sat the Leaving Cert in June 2013.
Of the remainder, 25 per cent either took a PLC following sixth year and secured a college place via that route, or dropped out of a course and are now coming back to college again; 15 per cent are mature students (ie, adults over the age of 23).
The progression percentage in the table shows the total number of 2013 college registrations from each school (with the above inclusions) as a proportion of the number of 2013 Leaving Certs taken at the school.
Numbers are not available on progression rates arising from Leaving Cert 2013 only.
What the list includes
This list indicates the success of second-level schools in securing places in publicly funded third-level colleges in the Republic of Ireland, as well as the two Northern Iris h universities: Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Ulster.
It includes all schools in the Republic of Ireland that registered more than 10 students with the State Examinations Commission for the 2013 Leaving Cert. It also provides information on those who secured places in two Northern Irish universities: Queens University Belfast and the University of Ulster.
This year, figures for students who attended third level in the United Kingdom in colleges registered with UCAS, the UK equivalent of the Central Applications Office (CAO), were not made available and are not included in the list.
In a case where a student attended more than one school during his or her second-level education, each school received a progression credit from the college the student eventually attended. Likewise, in the case of those students who repeated the Leaving Certificate, the figures provided to The Irish Times by many third-level institutions credit both the applicants' own second-level school and the school or institution in which they repeated the Leaving Certificate.
It also includes some mature students who applied to the CAO and lists the school in which they sat the Leaving Cert, as well as students who secured a college place last year but deferred it and accepted in 2013.
How to read the list
1. Number who sat Leaving Cert 2013: The total number of students from each school who sat the Leaving Cert in 2013, based on State Examinations Commission figures. 2. Total number (all years) who accepted 2013 CAO place: Alongside this, the table shows the total number of students who sat their Leaving Cert at that school, in 2013 or in previous years; or repeated the Leaving Cert in another school and started full-time undergraduate studies in a publicly-funded third-level institution on the island of Ireland in 2013.
3. Total percentage progression (all years) to third level: The final figure shows the total number of students from each school who sat the Leaving Cert in 2013; plus those who sat it in previous years and either deferred making a CAO application until 2013 or repeated the Leaving Cert in another institution. It also includes students who attended the school but changed schools before the Leaving Cert year.
Note that students who received college places through UCAS or other international college admission systems are excluded from these figures.
Information used in the list
The list is a combination of information from two different sources.
The State Examinations Commission (SEC) provides a list of every school with Leaving Certificate students from the class of 2013, excluding schools with a Leaving Cert cohort of fewer than 10 students.
Many students have studied for the exams in grind schools and are listed as external candidates. Other students who attend grind schools may sit the exams in external exam centres. Where possible, these students have been redistributed and attributed to the grind schools.
The information used by The Irish Times excludes candidates who sat the Leaving Cert in a school examination centre, but who were not students of that school. The resultant figure is the total number of students who attended each school and sat the Leaving Certificate in 2013.
The SEC list is then cross-checked with information from third-level institutions on the second-level school or schools attended by each of their first-year undergraduate entrants in 2013.
How the list is compiled
The number of students from each school who gained entry to any of the 33 colleges included in the list is added together to calculate a total. This is the best estimate of the number of students who attended each school and secured a first-year undergraduate place in Irish or Northern Irish universities in 2013.
That figure is then compared with the SEC figure of registered Leaving Certificate students recorded as having attended that school. The resulting percentage rate is recorded as that school’s progression rate.
What the list doesn't say about student destinations
This list shows how many of the students who were registered to sit the Leaving Cert in a particular school accepted a place in one of the featured third-level institutions.
A very small number of schools may include a high number of adult learners who have returned to education but do not sit enough Leaving Cert subjects to qualify for a third-level place.
Riversdale Community College in Dublin 15 is one such school. It has 78 students sitting a portion of the Leaving Cert but only 51 of these sit the full Leaving Cert and are thus eligible for a third-level place. Consequently, Riversdale and some other schools may have a higher college progression rate than is reported here. Due to data restrictions, it is not possible to independently verify how many other schools, if any, are affected by this.
This list cannot provide details of third-level destinations not featured here, such as international institutions, apprenticeships, UK universities, and private colleges. It is therefore only a partial picture for many schools. Schools with less than 10 Leaving Cert students are excluded due to data protection considerations.
Due to student confidentiality issues, the complete list of students who progressed from school into the Church of Ireland College of Education cannot be provided, with eight out of 32 students unaccounted for. This will have a minor impact on the recorded progression rate of eight schools in this list; however, those schools are not known to The Irish Times and cannot be identified.
Clarifications
The lists provided by the institutions include the names of schools which provided full-time undergraduates entering the institution in question in 2013 having sat the Leaving Cert earlier that year. The schools' data was released in the form in which it was held in the institutions' student-information systems.
This data is supplied to the institutions by the CAO for particular administrative purposes, and the institutions have indicated that they cannot stand over its reliability if used for another purpose.
This school data has not been verified with individual students and excludes students who have not entered through the CAO process.
The data is not a complete reflection of the number of incoming students in 2013 to third-level institutions, because in cases where, for example, a candidate sat the examination twice, that individual will appear as a statistic under both institutions and be entered twice in the data.
The Irish Times has made every effort to verify this data, which is based on the information provided by the SEC and by the individual institutions. This is the only publicly available data which can be used to give a picture of school performance.
However, errors may arise in some cases, while a number of schools will see their college progression rate severely affected by the exclusion of UK Feeder School data. The Irish Times emphasises that this data refers only to student progression to publicly-funded third-level institutions on the island of Ireland, and regrets that it cannot publish corrections to the 2013 Feeder School list based on UCAS or other overseas omissions.
All other notifications for errors should be addressed to feederschools@irishtimes.com
