Early Rounds: Mature student CAO applications drop 11%

By Niall Murray

As in other years, most of around 48,000 college places eventually filled through the CAO system will go to this year’s school leavers.

More than 82% of those who have applied with Leaving Certificate results have so far received a CAO offer. However, this encompasses more than just those who did the exam this summer, and includes over 19,500 people who did the Leaving Certificate in previous years.

Many of these may be applying as mature students, but this category (aged 23 or over) has seen one of the biggest drops in places being offered.

However, the 8% fall — from nearly 6,500 places offered a year ago to 5,973 — is less than this year’s 11% reduction in mature student applications.

In fact, when smaller offer rounds in July and early August are also taken into account, more than 60% of the 9,702 mature applicants have already received at least one offer of a college place.

Nearly three-quarters of those who applied to CAO with a further education qualification have been offered a place so far.

Among the 50,746 people receiving an offer today, nearly 1,600 applicants had already received an offer in one of the earlier CAO offer rounds.

These early rounds can include offers of places on courses with a proportion of their intake set aside for further education graduates.

They may also facilitate those coming from overseas and whose study visa requirements mean they need to be notified sooner to have everything in order.

Latest CAO data show a further 90 non-EU applicants will get an offer today, up from 80 this time last year.

Applications with UK school-leaving exam results are down 3% in 2018, but offers to such applicants so far are down 8% year-on-year to 1,171.

There are 254 offers to British-resident applicants this morning, two more than a year ago, but offers to applicants from Northern Ireland are down 14% from 921 to 791.

Three of the border counties also have some of the biggest drops in round 1 offers, falling 15% in Monaghan, and 11% in Cavan and Donegal.

Although there are 8% fewer offers to applicants in another border county Leitrim, the 1,443 offers to Co Louth students are 1% more than a year ago.