High-end courses set for points rise after record results

RECORD numbers of students with top Leaving Certificate points mean many high-end college courses could be tougher to get into than last year.

Almost 50,000 people are likely to be offered third level places on Monday but figures seen by the Irish Examiner show the number of school leavers with at least 450 out of a maximum 600 points has passed 10,000 for the first time. They represent almost 19% of all 54,341 who sat the Leaving Certificate this year, which does not include those who sat the Leaving Certificate Applied programme.

That exceeds the performance of any other group since the Central Applications Office (CAO) started using the current points system in the early 1990s, while the 8.8% (almost 4,800 students) with 500 points or more and the 2.8% (1,522 students) on at least 550 points are also record highs.