Record 60,000 get CAO offers
Though 1,137 of the 3,125 people being offered a place today had no such offer up to now, it still leaves around 18,000 of over 78,000 CAO applicants disappointed.
Many colleges increased capacity to cater for rising demand, but the bulk of places were filled by last week’s first-round offers. The 45,264 third-level spaces now filled are nearly 1,000 more than a year ago.
Of 1,494 places being offered on honours-degree (level-8) courses, 291 — nearly one-in-five — are on administration or business programmes, with 429 going to applicants for arts and social science degrees.
However, fewer than 40 out of over 250 science, engineering and technology level-8 degrees are filling more places, as most were snapped up in the past week.
The 64 medical-school places on offer is up from 39 at the same stage a year ago.
The combined points from Leaving Certificate and HPAT test scores needed for entry to all five undergraduate medicine degrees dropped in last week’s first round, and all five offered places today, with all but NUI Galway showing slight points falls.
But most other applicants to NUIG and Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology are likely to be disappointed as all but seven of their combined 80-plus level 8 degrees were filled in the first round. Just one level-8 degree each at Dublin City University, IT Tralee and Waterford Institute of Technology is offering places, while the main arts programmes at University College Cork, University College Dublin and NUI Maynooth are full since first-round acceptances closed on Monday.
Likewise, no places are being offered on the two largest primary-teaching degrees, at Mary Immaculate, Limerick and St Patrick’s College, Dublin. While these are only two out of 35 teaching programmes on offer through CAO this year, only 58 people are being offered entry to any of them in today’s second-round offers.
Offers can be accepted since going online at 6am, and CAO general manager Joe O’Grady advises anyone who got one to carefully consider their options.
“Many of the applicants receiving a second-round offer today may have already accepted an offer in round one, and it is important that they take the time to decide between these courses and inform the CAO before the reply date if they wish to accept the new offer,” he said.
The acceptance of a fresh offer will automatically cancel any previous acceptance of another course. Applicants have until 5.15pm next Wednesday to decide and offers will then issue on a weekly basis up to mid-October, with nearly 900 people getting a first-time offer during the corresponding period in 2013.
Around 200 applicants have been offered courses from both their level 8 (honours degree) and level 7/6 course lists today.
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