Vacant places on offer in 150 college courses

COLLEGE applicants have been given the opportunity to seek entry to 150 third level courses as more than 21,300 people remain without an offer of a place to date.

The courses – 61 honours (level 8) degrees and 89 level 7 or 6 programmes – are also open for application from prospective students who are not among the record 77,628 who already applied for college places up to July. The Central Applications Office (CAO) website began listing the courses at midday yesterday, with degrees in business, computing and some engineering spheres prominent, despite entry standards in many other courses within these disciplines up on last year in cut-off points for Monday’s Round 1 offers.

The “vacant places” courses are mostly ones which have not yet been filled due to low application levels or poor rates of acceptance in the 18 hours after offers went up on the website.