Points fall in nearly half of all Munster CAO courses

Twins Anna and Patrick Ryan were delighted with their CAO offers at Coláiste an Chroí Naofa, Carrignavar, Cork.   Picture: Dan Linehan

The first round of this year’s CAO offers saw points fall in more courses than they rose across Munster, analysis from the Irish Examiner has found.

In all, points fell in 47% of courses — although in 41 courses the points fell by 10 points or less. This contrasted with points rising in 43% of courses, rising by 10 or less in 42 courses.

In just over 9% of courses, the points stayed the same.

Following a Government guarantee, the results in this year’s Leaving Certificate exams were largely on par with last year’s class. 

This required a “post-marking adjustment” which saw more than half of grades increase.

Although points requirements rose significantly last year due to grade inflation, this has not been replicated in 2022.

99-point rise

In Munster, the course that saw the biggest jump was the BA in Contemporary and Applied Theatre Studies in Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, rising 99 points from last year to 308.

In the Technological University of the Shannon, formerly Limerick IT, Accounting and Finance jumped from 300 last year to 390 this year.

Points rose significantly in a number of courses at Munster Technological University, such as Electronic Engineering (up 83 points to 412), Enviromental Science and Sustainable Technology (up 74 to 336) and Marketing (up 61 to 351).

The biggest drops in points, meanwhile, were found in the likes of Mental Health Nursing at University of Limerick (down 85 points to 393), Data Science and Analytics (down 64) to 467 and Midwifery at UL (down 55 to 466).

In the case of Midwifery in Limerick, demand was such last year that some students who achieved the points requirement for the course were not offered a place in the first round of offers. This was not the case this year.

Round 1 offers

Here you can find the latest points information for both Level 8 and Level 7/6 offers. 

Users can search via institute name, course classification or specialist group by clicking on the corresponding drop-down. 

Level 8:

Level 7/6:

University College Cork

At University College Cork, the courses with the highest points requirements were both unchanged from last year, with Dentistry requiring 625 and Pharmacy requiring 613.

And, as like 2021, not everyone who got these points and had it down as their first choice was guaranteed a place.

Some of the more in-demand courses at UCC rose slightly on last year such as Mathematical Sciences (up 12 points to 578), Physics and Astrophysics (up 12 to 578) and Applied Psychology (up 22 to 566).

On the other hand, points for some other high courses fell like Occupational Therapy (down 24 points to 577), Medical and Health Sciences (down 12 to 566) and Law and Irish (down 36 to 552).

Courses that no longer required candidates to exceed 500 points included Agricultural Science (down 19 to 487), Midwifery (down 14 to 495) and the aforementioned Data Science and Analytics (down 64 to 467).

The biggest jump in points at UCC this year was for English (International Pathway) which was up by 35 points to 402.

With the exception of Aeronautical Engineering (up 22 points to 589), points for the top five courses in University of Limerick all fell this year.

This included Physiotherapy (down 12 points to 601), International Business (down 11 to 544), Physical Education with Teacher Education (down 9 to 543) and Psychology (down 3 to 531).

The largest drop in points in UL was for Intellectual Disability Nursing (down 111 to 351) with the highest rises coming in Mathematics (up 33 to 488) and Computer Science (up 32 to 434).

Munster Technological University

In Munster Technological University, as indicated above, points for engineering courses saw a big surge in many areas. This included Electronic Engineering (up 83 to 412), Electrical Engineering (up 67 to 409) and Structural Engineering (up 38 to 434).

Points for nursing courses and some science courses meanwhile are down at MTU as are media courses.

At Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, points across a number of primary teaching courses are down while arts was up 20 points to 300.

Following the general trend, nursing was also down at Waterford IT with psychiatric nursing down 48 points and General Nursing down 25.

The more popular courses were of a different theme, such as architecture (up 65 to 374), design (up 47 to 299) and Quantity Surveying (up 27 to 253).