In 1973, I entered UCD to study commerce, with only two Cs in geography and business, also securing the other matriculation requirements including the D in ordinary-level Latin. After a few days, I decided to switch to arts (politics, economics and philosophy); this took all of five minutes at the registrar’s office.
That was a very different time, and I was fortunate to have been admitted in advance of the avalanche of students who would subsequently apply to higher education because of the introduction of free post-primary education in 1967.
During my spell in UCD, I noticed this rise in student numbers, and so too did the admissions functions of the higher education institutions who were suddenly dealing with an increase in demand and, in some cases, an excess of applicants over available spaces.
By 1969, UCD had developed a points system for medicine and architecture to assist in offering a fair admissions process based on order of merit. Other universities were also following suit. While points systems assisted in the selection process, universities were experiencing the problem of students applying to multiple universities, with uncertainty as to where these students were going to land in September.
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This uncertainty was the motivator for university officials to come together in 1971 to discuss plans for a ‘clearing house’. It took until 1975 for agreement to be reached on the establishment of a central application processing service. On January 23rd, 1976, the Central Applications Office (CAO) was established as a not-for-profit company, owned and governed by the universities. The CAO’s status as a not-for-profit company will be a surprise to many who would have assumed it is a publicly-funded State body, but the company’s structure was intentional to ensure that the organisation could operate independently.
In celebrating its golden anniversary, the CAO has compiled a number of interesting statistics to demonstrate the organisation’s growth and success throughout the decades. The statistic that stands out the most is the figure of just over 1.5 million applicants who have accepted a CAO offer since 1977.
It is heartening to see the CAO’s participation figures for 2025 showing that 15 per cent of applicants were presenting QQI further education qualifications for entry into higher education. All too often the focus is placed on Leaving Certificate applicants; however, colleges offer pathways through the CAO for those doing PLC courses, mature applicants, GCE applicants and a growing number of applicants from other European countries. The Leaving Certificate is not the only route into higher education in Ireland, and the system is not designed solely for this cohort. The CAO has adapted over the years to meet the needs of applicants and the institutions that it serves.
I started teaching in 1976, in the year when the CAO came into being, and the organisation is one that I have worked closely with for all my professional life. In 1977 – the first CAO application cycle – there were 14,845 applicants for 69 courses in five universities. This year, 88,817 applications have been received already, with this number expected to rise by several thousand when the late application facility closes on May 1st at 5pm.
The educational landscape has changed dramatically over those five decades. The CAO has always had a close working relationship with us guidance counsellors, through formal and informal channels, and with annual consultation at events that bring the CAO, guidance counsellors and admissions officers together. It was in consultation with the Institute of Guidance Counsellors executive in 1982 that the framework for the current application schedule was agreed, and there has been little deviation from this model since. The CAO’s ability to listen to those on the ground has been testament to building rapport and trust with those charged with guiding students on their life journey.
Initially established for the five universities, the system expanded in the 1990s to include the regional technical colleges (RTCs), colleges of education and private colleges. At its highest point, the CAO had 45 participating institutions. Today, due to mergers, amalgamations and the establishment of technological universities, there are 30 institutions offering just under 1,500 courses. A significant addition to the CAO’s portfolio occurred in 2001 when nursing courses were added to the system.
With such significant expansion, the organisation also saw major technological advancements, utilising the most up-to-date computing systems available to share and receive information with the colleges and examining authorities. The application form first went online in 2000, with paper applications almost disappearing within a few years.
Today’s students would marvel at the manual labour that was involved in processing a CAO application during the 1980s and 1990s, with data keying, thousands of pages of examination data to sort, photocopying, filing and scanning. Indeed, there was still a significant manual element in recent times, when almost 80,000 applicants would receive postal correspondence to inform them of whether they had received an offer. Postal offer notices became a thing of the past only in 2019 to allow for a shortened window between the release of Leaving Certificate results and the issuing of offers.
I have got over halfway through this article without mentioning what the CAO has become synonymous with, and that is ‘points’.
However, the CAO is always at pains to explain the difference between the CAO system and points. The system could be described as an application processing service whereby they obtain your personal details, your examination information and your course choice preferences and they then supply this information to the colleges that you have applied to for the admissions officers to decide who gets the place based on the order-of-preference system. This is a simplistic explanation of the role of CAO, which I am sure is far more complex behind the scenes when you consider the scale of the work that is achieved under extremely tight time frames.
This newspaper has published articles in the past from commentators criticising the CAO points system, and I may have also expressed my concerns about certain elements, but you will have noted from earlier paragraphs that points systems were in place long before the CAO came into being. The current higher education common points scale was agreed by the colleges in 1992, when the RTCs joined the system.
At this time, the CAO also developed central evaluation software to take away the laborious task from the admissions officers of calculating scores for each of its school-leaving applicants. In fact, we often discuss the CAO’s role from an applicant’s perspective, but the CAO is a crucial cog in the wheel for all the colleges that are participating in the system. The introduction of time-saving systems such as the central evaluation software, which was also later developed for QQI further education applicants and GCE applicants, has helped the higher education system to cope with the growing demand.
The preserve of the CAO is not to decide the points for a course or who gets an offer. The CAO’s role is to ensure the efficient processing of applications and the application of the college’s chosen selection mechanism. And let us not forget the essential rule of the system, which insists that applicants must be placed on a list in order of merit. The colleges must then instruct the CAO on how many offers to issue from this process, which is based on the applicants’ performance and preferences. When you see the points score published for a course, this is not a magic number generated by the CAO or the admissions officers, it is the points score of the last applicant to receive an offer on that course in that round.
CAO points are decided by the principles of supply, demand and performance of applicants each year. It is the performance element which has received significant commentary in the last few years, with the impact of the pandemic grade inflation still being felt. The post-marking adjustment will be applied again this year, from the 2025 level of 5.9 per cent above pre-Covid 19 levels, which in turn will delay the release of Leaving Certificate results and obviously impact the start date for first years yet again. Colleges are keen to see round-one offers return to a mid-August release date to allow students to start their third-level journey in late August, as was the case pre-pandemic.
The golden rule of the CAO system is to list courses in genuine order of preference, and the applicant will get an offer of the course highest on their list that they are deemed eligible for.
Love it or loathe it, the CAO has stood the test of time, with some commentators describing it as “firm but fair”.
I think this is underestimating the value of this transparent, trustworthy, fair and efficient service, co-ordinated by a small team of 17 staff from its office on Eglinton Street in Galway.
