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Cao Reprieve For Some Students Who Lost Out On Favoured Course

Leo Migdal
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cao reprieve for some students who lost out on favoured course

Round-two college offers issued by the Central Applications Office (CAO) on Monday was largely a tidying-up operation. For some applicants, it meant being offered a place on their favoured course having lost out on random selection in round one. For a number of other students, including potentially new applicants, there was a chance to avail of three highly sought after disciplines where new courses were approved after the cut-off deadline of July 1st. Maynooth University’s new general nursing degree proved highly attractive over the past week as applicants inserted it into their CAO course preference list above anything they have been offered to date. The minimum CAO points required are 466, the highest among all the general nursing degrees offered in round one. In contrast, those applicants who listed the new physiotherapy degree at Atlantic Technological University (ATU) in Letterkenny and pharmacy at ATU in Sligo can count themselves fortunate.

This is because they secured their places at considerably lower points than the equivalent courses offered elsewhere in round one. Physiotherapy in Letterkenny is offered at 531. This is in contrast to the next lowest, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), where it was offered at 566, 35 points higher. Similarly, pharmacy in Sligo is offered at 577, 12 points lower than the 589 required in RCSI in round one. Some students will miss out on their top choice of college course this year, despite receiving the maximum grades available. Picture: Stanley Morales/Pexels

Points are up in almost half of all degree courses as almost 50% of students have missed out on their first choice of degree course following the first round of CAO offers. Data released by the CAO on Wednesday shows that entry to 25 courses has been determined by random selection. Some students will miss out on their top choice of college course this year, despite receiving the maximum grades available. Entry to two college courses with cut-off points of 625 has been determined by random selection, which sees a lottery used to allocate places. Among students who were disappointed when the CAO made its college offers on Wednesday are those who lost out through random selection. Their disappointment is keen because they did, literally, make the grade.

They got the points they needed but they tied with other students at the cut-off line for the last place or places on the course they had set their heart on. Random selection is not something that only affects those with the highest points. At Dundalk Institute of Technology random selection was used to pick the last students for two mid-ranking courses. Lottery system for places ‘a cruel arbiter’ Trinity’s vice-provost says Further and Higher Education Minister Patrick O’Donovan at the opening ceremony of University of Limerick’s August graduations. Photo: Arthur Ellis

CAO Round 1 turned into a bruising lottery for some of the highest-achieving students again this year, as Leaving Cert grade inflation kept points at extremely high levels. Even students with the maximum 625 points – or close to it – did not get their top course choice. Thousands of secondary school students have received their college offers, following the first round of CAO points being released on Monday. While some of the first round courses decreased following the ‘points inflation’ due to the pandemic, some courses have seen a huge surge in points required — meaning that those who scored the top... 27 Level 8 (Honours degrees) courses were subject to random selection — meaning that some applicants with the same points that applied for the same course will be offered on a random basis. Courses where there were random selections included medicine, pharmacology and physiotherapy.

Approximately 56% of people applying for Level 8 courses got their first choice, while 83% of the applicants got offered to one of their top three choices. When this year’s Central Applications Office (CAO) offers were released at 2pm on Wednesday, August 28, the debate about random selection in Ireland’s higher education system resurfaced. But what exactly is random selection, and does it truly belong in a fair college admissions system? The CAO system is responsible for undergraduate applications in Ireland, with admission to university courses based largely on points from the Leaving Certificate examinations. Each course has a fixed number of places, which determines the required points. For example, if a course has 50 places and there are 55 applicants the minimum points requirement is determined by the score of the 50th best applicant; if the 50th applicant achieved 520 points,...

However, when multiple students achieve this score — say the 50th and 51st applicants — the CAO employs a random selection process. This means that even students who meet the points requirement might not secure a place if they are not selected in the random draw. Having recently gone through the CAO process myself, the thought of my potentially not having received a place in my course due to a lottery is unsettling. This concern has only grown in recent years; although the process of random selection has been in place in Ireland for many years, it gained more prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic when inflated grades... In 2019, just 200 students accomplished this; now in 2024, that number has soared to around 1,000. This inflation has led to higher points requirements for many courses.

“This surge in applications has led to increased competition for places, particularly in high-demand courses” In recent years, Trinity has seen a record number of applications, with nearly 11,000 students listing it as their first preference in 2024. This surge in applications has led to increased competition for places, particularly in high-demand courses. Six courses in Trinity were subject to random selection in 2024, with Dental Science even applying this method to students who achieved the maximum 625 points. Still, this was an improvement from 2021, when twenty-four courses used random selection, with three — Law and Political Science, Dental Science, and Management Science and Information Systems Studies — involving random selection at... This decline is certainly positive; nonetheless, it demonstrates that random selection remains a tool for managing demand.

Nicole Rohan, 625 points, and Sinead Ahern, 625 points, after receiving their 2025 Leaving Certificate results at Christ King Girls Secondary School, South Douglas Road, Cork. Picture: Jim Coughlan While a high percentage of CAO applicants get offered their first choice on their course list, this isn’t the case for everyone. Some students work hard to prepare for the exams, but life circumstances can get in the way, or they may have lost out in the random selection process for a course with limited places. Guidance Counsellor Claire Murphy of the IGC says that when CAO offers come out first, the first reaction she sees is usually shock. “When the offers come out, students are shocked when they get what they wanted, and also when they don’t get what they wanted,” she says.

“From my experience, every year many students are disappointed that they don’t get their first choice. Many students feel very disillusioned and disappointed because although they put the work in, they feel that all their efforts and hard work are not reflected in their points. Many feel that life may not work out the way they had planned or wanted as a result of not getting their first or second choice.”

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