45,000 college places filled

Colleges have now filled more than 45,000 places for new entrants and look set to have limited vacancies to fill when new offers issue on Thursday morning.

The Central Applications Office received acceptances from 38,239 people up to yesterday evening’s deadline for Round 1 offers, nearly 800 more than a year ago.

By the same time last year, more than 44,000 applicants had taken up places on courses filled through the CAO.

However, only around 2,000 places are usually filled through subsequent rounds each year, meaning the odds are slim for any offer to most of the 19,000-plus applicants still waiting on one at this stage.

Although 3,203 offers were made in Round 2 a year ago, with some people offered two courses, just 1,206 applicants not already offered a place got good news. With a record 78,000 applications, however, some colleges have managed to increase capacity.

The total places accepted to date is 45,264, 975 more than this stage last year, and includes 7,315 people who got places in earlier stages of the CAO process. Many of those were mature students, overseas applicants, and further education graduates filling places reserved on some courses.

In the first main round of offers eight days ago, just under 51,000 were given a chance to take up one or two courses to which they had applied, with the deadline passing at 5.15pm yesterday for acceptances to be made.

The preparation of further offers by dozens of colleges and CAO is now taking place, and those offers will issue at 6am on Thursday.

Also vying for places on Thursday are 242 people who had not applied to the CAO already this year but who have sought places on some of around 200 courses that listed available places over the past week. They include courses leading to qualifications at a range of levels, and have also attracted fresh interest from around 600 people who added them to existing CAO applications.

Applicants can check their status at the CAO website from 6am on Thursday, and will receive a notification by post, or should also receive an email or text message if they signed up for alerts by those methods.

The cut-off points for entry to courses offering places in Round 2 will appear in Thursday’s Irish Examiner.