COLLEGE CHOICE:THE SENSE of anticipation was intense yesterday morning as 70,000 applicants to third level logged on to the Central Applications Office website.
Having studied for many years, they were about to discover which programme they were to be offered through the CAO applications process.
Almost 50,000 applicants received an offer on either of two lists, ie level 8 higher degree and/or level 6/7 higher certificate/ordinary degree.
What to do next?
All applicants who received an offer yesterday have until next Monday, August 29th, at 5.15p.m. to accept their place.
If you do not accept the place(s) proposed by that date, the offers will lapse.
If you accept an offer of a place that is not your first choice but further down your list of preferences, and your preferred choice then becomes available after the second round or later, you can transfer your acceptance to that course.
You may, of course, decide to stay with the course you originally accepted – the choice is yours.
What if I received no offer?
If this is the case, remember there is a “vacant place facility” within the applications process which opens today at noon.
Colleges that have not filled all available places in the first round will offer those places to anyone with the necessary entry requirements. You don’t even have to be a registered CAO applicant: as a new applicant, you simply complete the online application form at www.cao.ie
Existing applicants should simply amend their CAO record, inserting the vacant place course at the top of the list of choices.
If you are still hoping to receive an offer on one of your higher-preference courses (through the second round of offers, or a successful exam recheck), you should leave those courses ranked above any vacant place choice when modifying your application record.
In this way, if you are offered the vacant place in second-round offers, you will still be in line for your higher-preference courses if they become available.
Rechecking your exam results
Today is your last opportunity to return the form you received with your Leaving Certificate results to your school, which will enable you to view any of your scripts on September 2nd and 3rd.
You must be personally present to view the scripts. You cannot send someone to do so on your behalf. You may bring someone with you on the day, and it can be a different person for each paper.
If you want to ask a teacher or teachers in your school to accompany you, you should give them plenty of notice of your request. If you cannot be present at the viewing of your exam scripts, you are still entitled to request a recheck, which takes place after this viewing. Following the viewing of exam scripts, you then have to decide if you want to have the paper rechecked or not.
If your current mark is within 1 or 2 per cent of the next highest grade, I would strongly advise you to do so, as 20 per cent of scripts are upgraded each year.
How much does rechecking cost?
The recheck process costs €40 per paper.
The process takes about five weeks, so you will not have the result until mid-October.
If you are upgraded and receive additional points, you will be offered any higher CAO preferences you become entitled to.
You may have the option to take the place up this year, depending on how many weeks of lectures you have missed, or you may choose to defer and hold your place until next year.
Brian Mooney is guidance counsellor at Oatlands College, Dublin
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