Ask Brian: Any pointers on applying for college?

QUESTION: My eldest daughter is taking her Leaving Cert next June, and as this is my first time dealing with the college application process, can you give me any pointers for supporting her in the coming months?

ANSWER: The first thing you should do is to sit down at a PC over the weekend with a credit card and formally register (€25 charge) her intention to seek a college place through the Central Applications Office in August 2015. The only data she has to put in the application record is her identity and contact details. She will then have a CAO number and can submit course details up until July 1st, 2016.

If your daughter is not seeking consideration of a disability (Dare) or economic disadvantage (Hear), she can put her application aside for now. If she’s interested in undergraduate medicine, or any CAO “restricted” courses (mainly music, art, drama and so on), she has until January to list them on her online application. If she isn’t applying for these, she can take her time in making her course choices. Even if she lists her course preferences at this stage, she can change them completely in the 10 days after the Leaving Cert.

Once registered with CAO, she should focus mainly on her studies over the coming seven months. The key to effective exam preparation is having a weekly study plan, so she can revise and test herself with past exam questions over the coming 28 weeks.

The State Examination Commission (examinations.ie) publishes years of past papers and marking schemes, and your daughter should aim to answer at least two past exam questions, and apply the marking scheme to her answer, every day between now and her exams in June.

You can help her maximise this study programme by ensuring her home environment is conducive to her schedule. If due to family circumstances this is a challenge, she should partake in supervised study facilities in school, or, if this isn’t available, a local library.

Encourage your daughter to continue to reflect on one question over the months ahead: which study area does she most enjoy engaging with as she prepares for her Leaving Cert? Courses on offer in further and higher education in this field (all outlined on qualifax.ie) will be the ones to get her out of bed on dirty, wet winter mornings next year, when self- motivation becomes central to successfully making the transition from second to further and higher education.

• Your questions answered by education expert Brian Mooney. Email queries to askbrian@irishtimes.com