The Central Applications Office posts out the first round of college offers today. You should get your offer notice in the post tomorrow morning.
This first round is where the bulk of offers are made and is eagerly awaited by students around the State. A special "College Places" supplement, to be published with The Irish Times tomorrow will contain a complete list of the cut-off points.
If you have a computer, an Internet connection, and you don't mind a late night, you can look at the first-round points on The Irish Times on The Web at 12.01 a.m. tonight. (http:// www.irish-times.com/cao)
Many of the inquiries to The Irish Times helpline in the past week have, surprisingly, come from students with high points (or, to be more precise, from the mothers of students with high points). For instance, one student "only got 500 points". Another had bagged a mere 450. Their mothers were wondering how to console them.
Firstly, it should be said these students have done very well. Their results are way above average. It is a terrible pity they cannot rejoice in this fact.
Their need for consolation stems from their wholehearted pursuit of a limited number of courses which command extremely high points each year. Setting yourself a target such as actuarial studies, pharmacy or medicine is fine as long as you realise these courses have limited places. They will go the top 5 per cent of the 64,000 students who sat the Leaving this year.
With Leaving Certs of 450 points or more, these students should be in the running for places on hundreds of courses. They should be envied, not pitied.
It is the limited vision of many students, where they will only consider one or two very highpoint options, which has spawned the monster known as "the points race". In fact, there are more than 35,000 first-year places available in third-level colleges this year. This works out at about one place for every two applicants. There is no points race for many courses.
Cast your minds back to this time last year. In all, 77,000 offers were made through the CAO and 34,311 students took up places. The uptake on certificate and diploma courses was significantly lower than in preceding years. Last year, 42 courses advertised vacancies during the college offers season and 24 courses, including UCC's food processing engineering degree, offered places to all qualified applicants. The "degree or nothing syndrome" seemed to have seized the collective student mind.
So what will happen the points this year? How many offers will be made and will the cut-off points go up or down? The answer is, of course, that nobody will know until one minute after midnight.
Last year's points provide a rough guide to what may happen. But there are annual surprises as the popularity of particular courses waxes and wanes. The cut-off points are simply the points obtained by the last student offered a place on a course. Everyone else who was made an offer had the same number of points or a higher number.
There will be one definite difference this year as UCD no longer awards bonus points for higher-level maths. This will appear to lower the points requirement for many courses in UCD as these were inflated by the addition of bonus points last year and in preceding years. This year, UL is the only college awarding these bonus points for all courses.
For UL applicants, an A1 scores you an additional 40 points, an A2 35 and so on, in increments of five, down to a C3 (five additional points).
This means the points levels for some UCD courses could appear to be as much as 40 points lower than last year. In fact, the drop is artificial.
DIT continues to award bonus points for maths and a number of science subjects in the case of FT221, the electrical/electronic engineering degree.
The common points scheme, without bonus maths, makes it easy to compare like with like when it comes to cut-off points for courses in different colleges. With the exception of UL and the one course in DIT, this is now possible. The rationale for the bonus points for higher-level maths goes back to the old time-consuming maths syllabus.
A lot of callers worry about new courses as there are no previous points available for comparison purposes. In fact, experience shows these are the wildcards of the system. It is very difficult to predict demand for new courses whether they are certificates, diplomas or degrees.
Carlow IT update
Carlow IT is not making first-round offers in the national diploma in process control and instrumentation (CW97) due to insufficient applications. The college is writing to all applicants regretting any inconvenience and is keeping the matter under review. Prospective applicants will be informed of any change.
The college's Kilkenny and Wexford campuses are advertising two courses - the national certificate in business studies and the national certificate in office information systems - under the CAO vacant places procedure. No first-round offers are being made in these courses. Prospective students should refer to tomorrow's advertisements in the national press or contact the institute for details (phone 0503 70401/70457).
Leaving Certificate Applied
More than 1,700 students sat the final exams in the Leaving Cert Applied programme and we have had a number of calls from parents (well, mothers) wondering what these students can do next.
Credits for the LCA are awarded on the basis of 40 credits for successful completion of a number of modules; 27 credits for student tasks and 33 credits for the final exam. So these students do not get grades that can be translated into points for the purposes of third-level entry.
There is a broad range of options open to them, as a preliminary survey of last year's LCA graduates shows. Forty three per cent of these students went directly into employment. A further 30 per cent went on to Post-Leaving Cert courses; 12 per cent began FAS apprenticeships while 1 per cent went into FAS courses. Nine per cent went into forms of training such as CERT courses and private courses, while 3 per cent were unemployed.
A total of 752 students completed the first LCA programme last year and some 350 of these responded to the survey which was carried out by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment.
Although this programme is not designed for direct entry into third level, it is possible LCA students will find their way into the higher-education sector. They can progress via PLC programmes, as more than 1,000 places are reserved each year for PLC students with National Council for Vocational Awards level 2 qualifications (NCVA level 2).
This year, almost 8,000 students are pursuing the Leaving Certificate Applied Programme.
PLC progression
Most students who opt for a PLC course study for an NCVA level 2 award, where they must complete a minimum of eight modules. Many of these awards "articulate" (tie in) with certificate and diploma courses in the institutes of technology. This means specific PLC courses are accepted for entry into specific third-level courses.
More than 1,000 places are set aside each year for students with NCVA level 2 certificate-holders. The NCVA publishes a list of PLC courses with the corresponding third-level courses.
The institutes of technology, other than the DIT, assess students solely on the basis of their NCVA qualification. The DIT requires students to have the minimum Leaving Cert requirements for a particular course.
NCVA results are automatically forwarded to the Central Applications Office. Places are then awarded on the basis of students' performance - three points for a distinction (80 per cent), two for a merit (65 per cent) and one for a pass (50 per cent). The DIT calculates a grade point average - total points divided by eight, and a minimum grade point average of 2.2 is required.
The other colleges simply rank students on the basis of their individual scores. There is a slight variation in treatment here, as some colleges total points for eight modules while others allow students to add up points for eight-plus.
Ballyfermot Senior College
While the college has experienced a great deal of interest in its sound engineering, the course is not completely full. Late applicants are welcome to contact the college about sound engineering and all other PLC courses.
The Irish Times College Places Helpline is open today and tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. It will also be open from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. tomorrow only (college offers day). Readers should phone (01) 671 0328