Students face uncertain future due to CAO offers error
But a mistake by the Central Applications Office meant she should not have had the college place and now her dreams are in tatters.
The 27-year-old from Ballina, Co Mayo, was on top of the world when the CAO offer came through the letterbox two weeks ago.
Her friend Helen Walsh got a place on the same course and told the college a week ago they would be ready to join the class last Monday.
But just two days into the course, a subsequent letter from CAO headquarters in Galway informed them their offers had been made because of a procedural error and were being withdrawn.
“I don’t understand any of it, we left our house and our jobs to come up here and do this, and now there’s no place in college for us,” said Chris, who contacted the Today with Pat Kenny radio show yesterday.
“Even if the college and the health board can accommodate us, we’ve already missed the first five weeks of the course at this stage,” said Chris, who used to work in a nursing home.
The Mayo pair were among more than 20 prospective students who found themselves in the same position this week. Around 10 of them have taken up subsequent nursing degree offers but the other half are facing an uncertain future.
Officials from Letterkenny Institute of Technology and the North Western Health Board, who take the students in their hospitals on work placement, were meeting yesterday evening to try and accommodate some or all of the disgruntled students.
Whatever the outcome, Chris says she may seek legal advice.
The CAO has accepted complete responsibility for the error, which arose when they issued the wrong number of offers instructed to them by Letterkenny IT.
“This is nobody’s fault but ours and we have apologised to those concerned, but we know that is not much consolation for them,” said a CAO spokesperson.
“Unfortunately, while we created the problem we are not in a position to solve it because we don’t have any college places. But we are well aware of the implications for everybody effected and we hope something can be sorted out for them,” he said.
The CAO has offered around 80,000 college places to more than 50,000 applicants since the first round of offers was issued in early September.
