A third of students get at least 400 points

THIS year’s Leaving Certificate results are the best on record as an all-time high of close to one-in-three students got at least 400 CAO points.

The number with the maximum 600 points are down slightly as a proportion of all 54,480 students whose exam results were notified by the State Examinations Commission to the Central Applications Office (CAO) ahead of this morning’s first round of offers to school-leavers. But the proportion with 500 or more points and over 450 have never been higher, except in 2007, when points in the highest range were scored by more Leaving Certificate students than any other year.

However, the 16,672 students with at least 400 points – an average of four C2s and two C1s at higher level – is 439 more than last year and the biggest proportion since the CAO points system started counting sub-divided grades in the early 1990s. Previously, students were simply awarded A, B, C grades, and so on.