Students’ tense wait is finally over today
AMONG the 65,000-plus CAO applications this year were 41,000 students who got their Leaving Certificate results a mere five days ago.
After the stresses of the exams in June and last week’s joy and pain over their grades, this morning’s Round One offer stage is another time of trials and tribulations, particularly for those on tenterhooks about the rise or fall in points needed for their preferred courses.
The arts and social science degree category receives more Level 8 applications than any other, with about 8,500 places available this autumn. For most applicants to these courses, it is good news today with no significant rise in points requirements compared with last year.
General arts degrees in the universities are unchanged or down five points in some cases, the only exception being an increase of five points to 355 for entry to arts at National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG).
Despite fears by those anxious for an improved academic calibre of students entering science and engineering degrees, there was no big drop in points on all courses in these sectors.
Although the points have dropped by at least 20 for more than a dozen out of about 100 Level 8 science degrees, a similar number of high-demand science courses have seen requirements rise notably. One of the biggest was a 45-point increase to 415 for physics with astronomy at University College Dublin (UCD).
The points have fallen or are unchanged for just over half the Level 8 engineering degree courses, probably not as big a drop as might have been expected, based on a significant overall drop in applicants. The average fall in this sector was 15 to 20 points, but it is offset by average increases of almost 30 points for those courses which had greater demand for places. NUI Galway’s Industrial Engineering degree requires 420 points, 120 more than a year ago, and there were 90-point rises in the entry requirements for two engineering courses at Dublin City University.
Four out of five nursing degree courses, which accepted almost 2,000 entrants in 2006, remain either the same as a year ago or have seen a rise or fall of five or 10 points.
Also in the healthcare sector, falls of five points at University College Dublin (UCD) and Trinity College Dublin (TCD) were the only changes on this stage last year for entry to medicine courses.
The lowest score on which a Leaving Certificate student can get into medical school is still 570 points at UCD, University College Cork (UCC) and NUI Galway.
However, an examination of requirements on these and other health profession courses could be encouraging for future applicants.
Of 14 degree programmes in medicine, physiotherapy, pharmacy, dentistry and veterinary medicine, the points for eight have fallen. Although the drops on some medicine degrees were limited to five points, it still means more students were qualified than in previous years to get into these courses. The largest falls were the 15, 20 and 30 points drops for the physiotherapy degrees at Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), TCD and University of Limerick to 525, 530 and 555 respectively.
In a reversal of changes last year, the pharmacy programmes at RCSI, TCD and UCC all rose five points.
Dentistry at UCC is down five points, while places on TCD’s dental science course have been offered to any applicant with 565 points, whereas only some students with this score were offered the course last year. The country’s only undergraduate veterinary medicine degree at UCD is offered this morning to students with 550 points, five fewer than in 2006.
All of these medical profession courses are the first preference of only about 1,000 of the 65,000-plus CAO applicants this year.
It will be another two years at least before those seeking entry to medicine, and later for other healthcare profession courses, can base their application on an aptitude test as well as Leaving Certificate scores of about 450 to 500 points.
But, without any certainty of further falls next year, there may be some welcome relief for those among the Leaving Certificate class of 2008 with their sights set on becoming the doctors, physiotherapists and dentists of the future.
Elsewhere, rising demand saw the main civil law degrees rise by an average of 10 points and primary teacher training courses at the main colleges of education go up five or 10 points.
When they emerge as graduates in a few years, many will be teaching the infants who go on to form the Leaving Certificate class of 2024.
It must be hoped the same pressures don’t face those young people, many of them not yet born, when they come seeking places in college and choosing their career paths after school.
MORE than 31,500 lucky people have probably already discovered this morning that they’ve been offered one of their top three college course choices.
For 25,772 of them, it is a first, second or third preference on their honours bachelor degree (Level 8) list and almost two thirds of these are celebrating a place on their most wanted course. A little less than four out of five of the 33,000 people offered a Level 7/6 place will study on their first preference college programme.
In 2006, 43,480 people received an offer at this stage of the Central Applications Office (CAO) process, but that number is up slightly to 45,185.
Almost 1,400 more places than last year have already been offered to applicants before today’s Round One.
That number includes places on graduate medicine courses being offered for the first time this year at University of Limerick and Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
Among those given places at this stage — under the CAO’s Round A and Round 0 — may be people who applied for vacant places already offered on a few dozen courses, or mature students and overseas students presenting exam results from other countries.
After the acceptance of almost 5,000 Level 8 and Level 7/6 places before today, at least 37,000 places were still available to Leaving Certificate students and other hopefuls awaiting Round One offers.
An increase in overall courses for which entry selection is being operated by the Central Applications Office will have more or less cancelled most of the 2,600 rise in applicants this year.
The 720 Level 8 courses listed in the CAO system is one-fifth more than there were as recently as 2005 and 60 more than were on offer last year, probably a contributing factor to the rise in applicants.
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