CAO offers: Major effort to minimise use of random selection

The decision taken by Minister for Education Norma Foley to adjust the grades of this year’s Leaving Cert to keep them in line with those awarded to candidates in recent years has resulted in points remaining at or close to 2023 levels.
Some courses saw lower points requirements, often where additional places have been provided, or where the number of applicants has fallen.
In April, the Minister announced that there would be no change from last year with grades to stay at the same level on average, noting the ongoing impact of the pandemic on the learning journey of the class of 2024.
This means that, as with 2022 and 2023, the State Examinations Commission (SEC) has implemented a postmarking adjustment to the results to ensure grades in the aggregate remain at the same level as in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Additional marks
The SEC revealed last week that the additional marks added to students’ original marks was 7.5 per cent with the weaker results getting the highest numbers of additional marks.
Given that the grades awarded in 2024 are in line with those awarded in recent years, increases and decreases in CAO points requirements revealed today can only be driven by the additional places announced by Minister for Higher Education Patrick O’Donovan in early August in the area of medical and paramedical courses, or by changes in the pattern of student applications as revealed in the data published at the beginning of July.
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The CAO points requirements for medicine across the five universities, where 60 places were added in 2022 and again in 2023, are all down by 3 points in TCD, 2 points in RCSI, UCC and 1 point in UCD and Galway.
In nursing, where efforts are being made to fund additional places, the points requirements ranged from 342 in Castlebar, 343 in Letterkenny and 346 in Sligo to 440 in UCC, 429 in Galway university, 418 in SETU in Waterford, 411 in DCU and 410 in UCD and 430 in Limerick.
For those seeking a primary teaching place points requirements range from 473 in Marino, 480 in DCU St Pats, 488 in Mary Immaculate in Limerick to 507 in Maynooth. Veterinary medicine, which is only offered in UCD, remains at 589, but with random selection.
Colleges have made a concerted effort to minimise the number of courses where random selection occurs. This occurred in just over 20 programmes this year, including 5 in Trinity, 4 in UCD and three in UCC and St. Angelas in Sligo. Only two programmes requiring a perfect score of 625 have gone to random selection in 2024: Economics and Finance in UCD and Dental Science in Trinity.
Four programmes where students secured 613 CAO points (five H1s and one H2) feature random selection this year. They are Pharmacy in UCC, Actuarial and Finance in UCD, Engineering and Management Information Systems and Management in Trinity.
Overall, the CAO offered 83,369 places to 56,571 applicants. These consist of 51,934 Level 8 course offers and 31,435 Level 6/7 course offers.
A total of 29,173 (56 per cent) Level 8 offers are for the applicant’s first preference course, a fall of 3 percentage points on 2023, and 43,280 (83 per cent) Level 8 offers are for one of their top three preferences, 2-points down on 2023.
A total of 28,781 (92 per cent) Level 6/7 offers are for the applicant’s first preference course, and 31,087 (99 per cent) offers are for one of their top three preferences.
Applicants who do not receive an offer may wish to check the CAO’s “available places” facility which is available to new applicants for a €45 fee. It is free to existing applicants.
The CAO processes applications for undergraduate courses in Irish higher education institutions (HEIs). Decisions on admissions to undergraduate courses are made by the HEIs which instruct the CAO to make offers to successful candidates.
The now Taoiseach Simon Harris provided over 1,000 additional places in 2022 and a further 460 places in 2023. Minister Patrick O’Donovan provided some additional places earlier this month. Obviously, where there are more places available a course’s points should drop, unless demand also increases.
Where there has been an expansion of places, as has occurred in disciplines related to the environment in 2022, and the medical/paramedical places in 2023 and 2024, the increase in choice has led to a softening of CAO points requirements.
One factor driving demand for places has been the huge increase in applications <NO1>numbers<NO>from students living in EU countries. From a little over 2,000 before Brexit the numbers have ballooned to almost 8,000.
Many of these EU applicants, whose CAO points score is a conversion from their own school examination, received offers in Round One. But, due to the relatively late timing (in European terms) of Ireland’s CAO offers, many of these applicants will have already committed to other colleges and these places will be reoffered to those with lower CAO points scores in Round Two and subsequent rounds.
For more information applicants should visit cao.ie.
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