CAO: Demand in engineering courses sees increase in their points

Significant increases in the cut-off points for entry to dozens of engineering programmes this year may reflect the rising demand for degrees in a category of such courses, along with those with a technology leaning.

Add to this the increased proportions of Leaving Cert students scoring at least 450 points in this year’s exams — as reported in this newspaper last Saturday, up from 21% to 22%, or 700 more than a year ago — and it would seem natural that a raft of courses that traditionally command points in the upper range might have even higher thresholds than in 2014.

But the fact that first preferences for science degrees were down slightly this year might lead you to expect points to be steady for that category. Instead, Round 1 CAO points are up for over half this year, although not to the same degree as the increases in engineering or technology. It might be, of course, that more higher-performing students have applied for those places than last year.