Almost 77 per cent of CAO applicants will have received an offer of a college place in this morning's round-one envelope. This represents an increase of 4 per cent on last year.
To date, the CAO has made 2,985 offers in "round zero" and 74,769 offers in round one. Round zero applied to candidates who were not waiting on current exam results.
The number of offers exceeds the number of applicants - this year, the CAO received 64,996 applications. This is possible because the certificate/diploma and degree lists operate independently of each other: some students will have received two offers. Of course, they can only accept one.
At the end of round one, the places which were rejected will be redistributed. This means that some 13,000 applicants who have not got an offer so far may be made an offer in round two or later.
In all, the CAO has made 29,134 degree offers today, an increase of 2,717 on last year. Of these, 43 per cent got their first preference. And even more encouragingly, 71 per cent got one of their top three degree choices.
At certificate/diploma level, 45,635 offers have been made today, with 65 per cent getting their first preference. About 87 per cent have got one of their top three choices.
Students receiving an offer of their first-preference place on either list will not be made any subsequent offers from that list.
The question most people are asking is whether the points went up or down. This is no simple answer; points increased dramatically for some courses and fell equally dramatically for others.
A comparison of this year's first-round points with 1998 shows that certificate/diploma points fell by 30 or more in about 90 courses, while points rose by 30 or more in fewer than 30. At degree level, there were drops of 30 points or more in nearly 40 courses and increases of 30 points or more in fewer than 25. (This is not an exact science, because some courses registered AQA rather than a cut-off and others included assessment other than the Leaving.
The cut-off points are largely comparable with each other across courses and colleges in that a common points system operates. However, UL awards bonus points for higher-level maths. DIT awards bonus points for maths and some science subjects in the case of one degree only, electrical/electronic engineering.
The institutes of technology are awarding higher points than the universities and DIT for the link modules taken by Leaving Cert Vocational students. Almost one-sixth of Leaving Cert candidates took the LCVP programme.
The final cut-off points may be somewhat lower than the first-round points. The drop, which is not usually very steep, is determined by the offer-and-acceptance pattern. A second round of offers will be posted by the CAO on September 6th. There will be no third round of offers; any remaining places will be offered on a rolling basis.
The top ten
Once again, law with French at TCD topped the list of points, this time requiring 570* (the asterisk means random selection applied; not all applicants at this points level were offered a place). It was joined in pole position by another TCD offering - medicine.
Of the 24 courses registering a cut-off of 525 or higher, unsurprisingly, 17 belonged to the medical/dental/veterinary/ paramedical category, while four were law courses. In addition, history and politics, business and French and actuarial and financial studies featured in this list.
The inclusion of so many TCD courses reflects the college's policy of splitting courses into direct-entry from first year; there are very small numbers of first-year places on some of these courses. There are only eight places on human genetics, 15 on business studies and French. A small number of places combined with high demand makes for high points.
Places on the courses referred to above are allocated on the basis of Leaving Cert points only (600 being the maximum). There are courses where additional points are given for interviews, assessments, portfolios and/or projects so for them the total may exceed 600.
All qualified applicants
The letters AQA crop up eight times on the degree list: materials science in UL and on seven degrees in LSB College. AQA means that all qualified applicants were offered a place. As might be expected, it appears with far greater frequency on the cert/diploma list - more than 60 times. This is a big increase on last year and a further indication that students are misreading the value of certs and diplomas.
The good news for applicants is that many of these courses will advertise vacant places. Already, American College and Carlow IT are inviting applications for a number of courses (details were in yesterday's College Places column in The Irish Times).
Paramedical sciences
Paramedical courses, especially degrees, are perennially popular. DIT's human nutrition and dietetics degree rose by five points to 505; its optometry course required 545 points this year compared to a final cut-off last year of 520*.
In TCD, the points required for physiotherapy, occupational therapy, pharmacy, therapeutic radiography and human genetics all rose. In UCD, physiotherapy and radiography were also up.
There was better news for candidates seeking paramedical courses at cert/diploma level. Medical lab sciences in CIT had a cut-off of 430; in DIT 405 points or higher was needed, while GMIT's course cut off at 420 - all down on last year. .
Medicine/veterinary medicine/dentistry
Some dentistry hopefuls will have been disappointed by a 10-point rise in UCC, bringing the round-one cut-off to 535*. In TCD it was 540*, the same as last year's round one. (By the final round, it had fallen to 535.)
There was better news for those looking towards veterinary medicine, with points down to 540* from 545*.
There was a general increase in the points needed for medicine. At TCD, medicine topped the points list requiring 570*, while UCC required 565, UCD 555*, NUI Galway 560 and RCSI 550*. The RCSI's Leaving Cert scholarship places required 580*.
Arts
There were no dramatic changes in the points required for entry to omnibus arts programmes. At UCD points, fell by five to 380*, while at UCC, NUI Galway and NUI Maynooth the cut-offs were static at 380*, 390* and 365*, respectively.
Primary teaching
The points fell for most primary teaching courses. The cut-off in Mary Immaculate, Limerick, was 450*, down 15. In St Patrick's, Drumcondra, Dublin, the first round registered 460* compared to 475* last year (final cut-off 470*). The Church of Ireland cut-off fell to 385*, down on last year's final cut-off of 400, while in Colaiste Mhuire, Marino, Dublin, 440* was the cut-off, a fall of 20 on last year's final round. Froebel College's cut-off also fell from 455* (final cut-off last year) to 445* this year.
As always, the cut-off points for the places reserved for Gaeltacht applicants were considerably lower.
Commerce/business
Demand for commerce and business studies degrees appears to have increased, with slight rises in the points for most omnibus-entry courses. In UCC commerce rose by 10 to 445* while TCD's BESS programme cut-off at 475*, also up 10. In UCD there was five-point increase to 445*, while in NUI Galway the round-one cut-off was 415*, compared to a final cut-off of 395* last year. In UL, business studies was up five to 420 and in DCU's business studies programme there was an increase of 10 points to 435*.
In DIT, business studies rose from 405 last year to 415 this year, while in WIT it rose by five to 345. The points for commerce with languages ranged from 420 to 515.
Science degrees
First-round points dropped for six omnibus science degrees - chem/phy/math at UCC; applied science at DIT; science at TCD, UCD, NUI Galway and NUI Maynooth - when compared to last year's first round. The cut-offs ranged from 305 to 425. In UCC, the cut-off for biology/ chemistry programme rose by 25 to 440*. DCU's new omnibus entry programme registered a cut-off of 365.
Engineering degrees
There was a dramatic fall in the points required for UCD's omnibus engineering programme. The cut-off fell to 385 from 440 in the first round last year (final cut-off 430). In NUI Galway's omnibus programme points rose to 465 from 440*. In TCD, the cut-off was five points higher than last year at 425. In DIT the cut-off of 320 represents a fall of 50 on last year's round-one points (final cut-off last year was 325).
New courses
To some extent, new courses are the wildcard in the system, with no benchmark. TCD's new medicinal chemistry course clocked up a cut-off of 520 points, while the RCSI's new physiotherapy course had a cut-off of 535. UCC's new European studies degree came in at 400, while DCU's multimedia course required 445 points. Other degrees at DCU include sport science and health (460) and science education (390).
At the new Blanchardstown IT, points for certs and diplomas ranged from 240 to 365.
No offers
No offers were made on eight degree courses: polymer engineering in Athlone IT, psychoanalytic studies in LSB, business in LSB, business and computing in LSB, European business/languages (area-based partnership) in NCI, computer science in Portobello, business and law in Portobello and eolaiocht ainiliseach le Gaeilge in NUI Galway.
On the certificate/diploma list no offers were made on five courses offered by Carlow IT (office info sys/German, office info sys/French, computing (Kilkenny), computing (Wexford) and process instrumentation and control); supervisory management in Griffith; civil engineering in GMIT; aquaculture in Tralee IT.
Some of these courses were cancelled and the CAO notified applicants in April. Others were not and applicants may have wasted their choices.
Offers for PE in UL and for clinical speech in TCD are made in round two.
