CAO offers: Slight fall in number of students receiving first-round preference
Place Of Candidate’s Being Year 59% Preference Reduction From Degree The Is A Year This 56% A Offers First Last
More than 56,000 candidates received an offer of a college place in the first round of CAO offers on Wednesday, with students getting their top choice in just over half (56%) of offers for degree courses.
After the Leaving Cert results were issued last week, today is another big day for tens of thousands of students who were waiting to hear if they got their college course of choice.
The 56% of degree place offers being a candidate’s first preference this year is a reduction from 59% last year. 83% of offers issued were in a candidate's top three preferences.
There was an increase in Round One offers issued for courses in specialist subjects this year, including dentistry with 61 offers (up 5% from 2023), medicine with 644 offers (up 7%) and nursing with 2,219 offers (up 8%).
However, there was a drop in first-round offers issued for courses in primary education at 1,234 offers (down 6%) and secondary education with 1,412 offers (down 4%).
There was an 11% increase in Round One offers for law courses this year, and a 6% increase in offers in courses in journalism and information. On the other hand, there was a 13% drop in first-round offers for environment courses, an 11% drop in offers for agriculture courses and an 8% drop in ICT course offers.
Students hoping to do some popular courses will find themselves in the unlucky position of not securing an offer for that course despite meeting the points requirement.
This is because, in the era of artificially inflated grades, universities are allocating places based on a lottery due to both the high demand for courses and the high volume of grades achieved.
In University College Cork, some students who achieved the points requirements for Pharmacy (613 points), occupational therapy (566) and medicine won’t be offered a place on that course in the first round.
Some courses at UCC have seen the points requirement fall this year. In 2023, social science required 445 points. This year, the requirement was 369.
Applied Psychology has fallen from 554 points to 532, computer science is down from 510 to 500 and dentistry is down from 625 to 618.
However, courses that have risen at UCC include commerce (499 to 509), finance (565 to 578) and law (525 to 530).
There were 83,537 applicants on the CAO this year, a slight reduction of almost 700 on 2023s figures. Of these, 58,352 are applying having sat the Leaving Cert this year.
Furthermore, 47,324 applicants availed of the option to change their mind on what their preferences were ahead of the deadline.
The acceptance date for Round One offers is Tuesday, September 3, at 3pm. Accepting an offer lower down the list of preferences does not preclude candidates from accepting an offer for a course higher up their preference list in the next round.
Round Two offers will be issued from 2pm on Monday 9 September.