How to apply for college through the CAO in 2015

Your first step is to register your intention to seek a CAO college place immediately. If you are interested in getting a place in an Irish university, institute of technology, teacher training college, or private college, offered through the CAO application process, go to cao.ie by January 20th and make an application, paying a €25 charge by credit or debit card.

All the CAO looks for from you this stage is your personal details, including name, address, phone numbers, disability/specific learning difficulty, country of birth, nationality, email address, payment details, and any post-second level (PLC) educational or other qualifications you have.

When you have done this, you’ll get your CAO identification number. You may or may not be in a position to indicate right now the courses you wish to be considered for next September. But you have freedom to return to your application during May/June next, to list or amend your course choices, up until the July 1st final deadline for all such changes. The most comprehensive source of course information is available on qualifax.ie.

Options

outside the CAO The further education sector

has opportunities for students who may not secure the points they want for a course through the CAO, but who may do very well in a post-Leaving Cert (PLC) course in the discipline they want to study. If students get distinctions in all eight modules of the PLC programme they have a good chance of securing a reserved place in their preferred CAO course next year. A database of such linked programmes is available on careersportal.ie.

In some areas, such a nursing, there is a very small number of CAO places for such students, so many successful PLC students end up in UK nursing programmes (480 Irish students did so last year).

PLC programmes also offer opportunities to gain practical skills for employment in a trade or craft, such as hairdressing, beauty, fire and ambulance services, etc. Students interested in a course offered through local PLC colleges should fill out an application form from the college in the next few weeks. Places are offered on a first-come first-served basis in most cases, and may be impossible to secure later in the year.

Two thousand Irish-based students get places in the UK through UCAS each year, of whom 800 are over 23. Most of these places are in para-medical, biological and physical sciences, as well as art and design programmes.

Those interested in a UCAS place in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales or England should submit an application to ucas.com by Thursday, January 15th.

Finally, given the high entry requirements for many disciplines in Ireland, students should also look at some of the 800 courses offered through English in EU universities (see eunicas.ie ).These courses are offered at very low fees in many cases and have attainable academic entry requirements. Some European countries have a shortage of young people so third level is freely available. Failure or drop out rates after first year are high, so getting a place, and securing your qualification are two totally different matters.

Choosing a course

You need to apply for any course listed as “restricted” in the CAO

handbook by February 1st. All other courses can be added or removed from your application list up to the final change of mind deadline on July 1st. With UCAS you have to finalise your course list by January 15th. You must also indicate which PLC courses you are applying for on your initial application to each college. For courses in other EU countries offered through English, application closing dates are on each course profile page on eunicas.ie.

Between February 5th and March 1st, any CAO applicant may change a course choice for a fee of €10. If you are a mature student, or if you have applied for a restricted application course, or wish to apply for one you have not yet listed, and wish to correct or amend your application record, you must report any errors to the CAO by March 1st (fee €10). If you are not in these categories, you do not need to correct any course errors at this stage. You may use the change of mind facility between May 5th and July 1st to make any changes, at no financial charge.

Before the end of May all applicants will be sent a statement of application record as a final acknowledgment and to verify all information has been recorded accurately. If it does not arrive by June 1st, contact the CAO immediately. Accompanying this statement will be a change-of-mind form, which you can use up to the closing date, 5.15pm on July 1st, 2015. You may make as many changes as you wish online or on paper.

CAO offers

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n the first week of July the CAO will make over 600 offers to mature applicants (over 23 years-old) and to applicants who accepted and deferred a place offered last year. A further 2,000-plus places will be offered to mature applicants at the beginning of August. Places in graduate medicine are offered at this stage. These offers will arrive at your home address in the middle of the summer so if you are applying for one of these places, be sure to make arrangements to deal with any offers sent to you.

When the change of mind period closes on July 1st, current 6th-year students must wait for the results of their Leaving Cert on Wednesday August 12th. When results are available, admissions officers inform the CAO of the exact number of places available on each course. The CAO then allocates places via computer, based on the results of each qualifying student and the instructions of the admissions officers.

Colleges offer a specific number of places on each course listed with the CAO. Students are offered their highest choice on each list, to which their points entitle them. If there are 100 places on offer, the 100 students with the correct entry requirements, who have the highest points, will be offered these places in round one of the offers in August.

When the CAO computer system receives the Leaving Cert results on August 12th, each candidate’s choices are examined, starting with their first choice on each list, and working downwards. When their points fall within the number of places offered on a particular course, the computer offers them that place and removes all lower preference courses. The CAO may still offer them a place on a course higher up the list if one becomes available.

It is imperative candidates list their choices in the order that they actually desire them, from 1 to 10, 1 being their most desirable course, and 10 being the least desired course.