CAO: First round offers for 57,000 students as half get first choice Level 8 courses

As students received marks in the Leaving Cert that were largely on par with last year, points for many top-ranked courses have remained broadly similar to the points required in 2021.

Offers through the CAO are up by 2,000 on last year, including an extra 2,269 Level 8 offers.

For many courses, however, not all of those who achieved the required points were offered places. In such cases, random selection was used to assign a candidate who met the requirements to that course.

At University College Cork, this was the case for courses such as Medicine (738 points, extra points via HPAT), Dentistry (625), Pharmacy (613), Occupational Therapy (577), Speech and Language Therapy (577) and Children’s and General Nursing (554).

At Munster Technological University, not all students who achieved the requirement of 589 points for Biomedical Science will have been offered a place in this round.

This year, five courses required 625 points which is the highest possible points that can be achieved in the Leaving Cert, up one from last year.

Points were down in many courses across nursing and midwifery, and in many teaching courses. Points were also down in journalism courses in DCU and Galway.

Courses across many communications technology disciplines such as computer science were up, on the other hand, and higher for maths courses.

In all, the 57,296 candidates received 85,894 first-round offers.

CAO applicants can check if they’ve received an offer from 2pm today by logging into their account and checking the “my application” facility at www.cao.ie.

The CAO said 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 issue in respect of Level 8 and Level 7/6 offers. There will be no postal offer notice.

CAO head of communications Eileen Keleghan urged students to consider their offers carefully.

“One of the common queries that we receive at the offers stage is around order of preference,” she said.

“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.” 

 Offers must be accepted by 3pm on Wednesday 14 September.

Minister for Further Education Simon Harris said he welcomed the increase in students receiving one of their first three preferences for Level 8 courses, up to 82% from 79% last year.

“This cohort of students completed most of their Leaving Cert cycle under the cloud of COVID-19, and all the challenges to learning that brought,” he said. “They showed incredible drive, understanding and flexibility to ensure the system worked, and for that I want to thank them, and of course their teachers.” Mr Harris added that PLC courses and apprenticeships are some of the alternative options available to students, and urged them to consider the pathway that may suit them.

“Take a minute, breathe and look around,” he added. “There is far more out there for you than you think, and it’s important to remember that there are other ways to achieve your goals – more than 11,000 people got CAO offers this year through alternate entry routes like further education.”