2,200 college places offered but mostly to previous recipients

Niall Murray Education Correspondent

Only 771 college applicants were offered third-level places for the first time this year when the latest round of offers were made yesterday.

The Central Applications Office (CAO) made offers to over 2,200 people but almost two-thirds went to people already offered a place in Round 1 last week or in earlier rounds.

Those 1,455 applicants were yesterday offered places on courses higher on their preference lists than those they were previously offered, meaning they can now accept those better offers if they wish.

With close to 38,000 college places taken up after Round 1 last week, more than three-quarters of the 900 honours (level 8) degrees in the CAO system were filled by last weekend and did not offer any places yesterday.

The only primary teaching degree offering places was at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, but several second-level home economics teaching courses at St Angela’s College Sligo made offers.

Among nearly 220 level 8 courses that did have some new places to offer, the CAO points needed for 50 were the same as in Round 1, but points fell by 20 or more for another 40 degrees.

The 771 applicants getting a first-time offer is down by one third from 1,150 this time last year.

But the 17,700 CAO applicants yet to be offered a college place is nearly 1,000 fewer than a year ago as overall third-level entry applications fell 4% to 77,425.

CAO offers made yesterday must be accepted by 5.15pm tomorrow evening, with a further round of offers tomorrow week, September 7. Over 200 courses are still open for fresh applications to existing and new applicants.