Online CAO applicants told to be patient

STUDENTS having trouble accessing the Central Applications Office (CAO) website to submit college course choices have been advised to remain patient.

With the deadline for applications closing at 5.15pm tomorrow, thousands of Leaving Certificate students and other intending applicants have left it to the last few days to submit their course lists. But the volume of traffic on the site led to many people experiencing delays or believing the website may have failed.

A CAO spokesperson said up to 600 applications an hour were being submitted at one stage yesterday.

“With such heavy usage, the website will understandably appear slow at times between now and the closing date,” he said.

But anxious students, parents and teachers were told last night to be patient.

Institute of Guidance Counsellors (IGC) president Frank Mulvihill said: “The best message is to persist until you get through or come back and try later, or those with internet access at home might try this evening or tonight. But if the same problems are experienced on Wednesday and Thursday, perhaps the CAO should extend the application deadline by a week.”

Meanwhile, it has emerged that it may be at least two years before school-leavers will have a realistic chance of qualifying for medicine school without near-maximum Leaving Certificate results.

While those applying for the country’s first 60 graduate entry medical places will take a graduate medical school admission test (GAMSAT) in March, it seems the earliest a similar aptitude test to select Leaving Certificate students can be set up will be in 2009.