CAO receives surge of early college course applications

THE Central Applications Office has received a surge of forms from students notifying them of their course choices more than three weeks before the deadline.

More than 62,000 people applied for third-level courses up to the February 1 cut-off last year, but 30,000 of these were received online in the final week.

However, CAO officials said they had already received more than 10,500 by mid-afternoon yesterday, compared with 3,847 on the same date last year. The application figures stood at 6,600 last Thursday, up from 2,200 at the same stage in 2007.