CAO offers issued: Record number of courses exceed 600 points
A First Office Course, Preference For Half Data Shows Missed Applicants Have The Applications Level On (cao) Central From Their College Of 8 Out
Half of all students are set to miss out on their first preference Level 8 college course as the points requirement for many courses continues to soar.
One in two applicants (50%) have missed out on their first preference for a Level 8 college course, data from the Central Applications Office (CAO) shows.
A record number of courses saw their points soar upwards of 600 this year. According to data published by the CAO, 22 courses this year had first-round cut-off points exceeding 600 points.
Four of these courses had cut-off points of 625, the maximum number of CAO points, for this first round with college places then determined by random selection, meaning not every student who received these points received an offer this round.
This compares to seven in 2020, and one in 2019, the first time the 600 points were breached. Overall, 24,758 Level 8 offers issued to students today are for the applicant's first preference course.
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A further 39,063 (79%) of Level 8 offers are for one of their top three preferences of college courses. This is broadly in line with the first round of offers last year, when almost 52% of students received an offer for their top choice of college course.
The CAO has issued 82,175 Round One offers to 55,221 CAO applicants. This consists of 49,358 Level 8 course offers and 32,817 Level 7/6 course offers.
In terms of Level 7/6 offers, close to 90% of the offers issued today is for the applicant’s first preference course, and the vast majority (98%) are for one of their top three course preferences.
More than 48,000 applicants to the CAO are presenting Leaving Cert results from this year. CAO applicants can now check to see if they have received an offer by logging in to their account using the ‘My Application’ facility at www.cao.ie.
Successful applicants will also receive an offer notification via email and a text message if they have selected this option on their application form. Separate emails and texts will be issued in respect of Level 8 and Level 7/6 offers.
According to the CAO, it is possible that applicants may receive two offers at the same time: one from the Level 8 list and one from the Level 7/6 list. Applicants must choose between these lists and can only accept one offer per offer round.
- Offers must be accepted by 3pm on Monday, September 13.
Eileen Keleghan, CAO communications officer, advises applicants to carefully consider any offers received in this round. “One of the common queries that we receive at the offers stage is around order of preference.
“Applicants who receive a lower preference offer can accept this offer and it will not prevent them from receiving an offer of a course higher up on their courses list in a later round should a place become available and they are deemed eligible.
“Those who have received an offer in this round should also consider the current offer carefully as it may be the only one they will receive.”
If an applicant has not received an offer they will receive a ‘Statement of Application’ email.
“It is important that applicants notify the CAO immediately if there are any errors or omissions in their CAO account. They must make sure to do this as soon as possible to allow any corrections to be considered for subsequent rounds.”
- Round Two offers will be available to view on the CAO website from 10am on September 20. The reply date by which Round Two Offers must be accepted is 22 September at 3pm.
Offers are then issued on a weekly basis to fill any remaining places.
Students who do not receive an offer may wish to check the ‘Available Places’ facility which re-opens on CAO website on Wednesday, September 8 at noon.