Offers to EU students increase by 100

Among the increased number of CAO offers this morning, there are nearly 100 more EU students being offered places than this time last year.

This is likely a direct impact of increased applications from countries whose students might otherwise may have been seeking entry to UK colleges, although it is unclear if concerns about Brexit will necessarily see all those additional places being accepted.

Regardless, those EU students still only account for less than 600 of the overall 52,374 applicants who got their college offers by email this morning.

The offers gone out to 921 Northern Ireland applicants and 252 from Britain are 24 and 26 less, respectively, than a year ago, proportionate to the slight decline in applications from those two countries.

While offers to non-EU applicants dropped from 84 to 80, others may be among the 7,724 people who accepted offers in two preliminary rounds in the past six weeks.

Those offers were made to a range of applicant categories, including some of those from outside the EU requiring earlier notification in order to make visa and travel arrangements.

The CAO has reported a 6% rise to 4,449 in applications from people with school-leaving exams other than the Leaving Certificate or UK equivalents.