Tens of thousands of new third-level students will be making their way to colleges throughout the island of Ireland over the next few days.
Over the past week, the Irish Times CAO help desk – through education experts Deirdre Garrett and Brian Howard – answered hundreds of questions.
The questions – and, let’s be honest, it was often mothers of students asking – related to:
- the consequence of the outcome of Leaving Cert appeals,
- how the CAO vacant places system works,
- university policy in offering places beyond round one,
- the deferral process and how such an applicant is treated if a higher-preference course becomes available,
- how an applicant who has made an error in their application record is treated,
- and the financial consequences of dropping out of a course during the year.
Third-level institutions are businesses like any other and they operate on the principle of filling every available place in as efficient a process as possible. They offer adult applicants places in early July, those who have secured level 5/6 post-Leaving Cert awards in early August, and all others including this year’s school leavers in late August.
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The final round of offers, titled first round, even though it is in fact the third one, is the one in which the admissions officer is tasked with filling the course. To do so, they operate on the same principle as airlines. In determining the number of offers they build in the average non-acceptance rate from previous years, including requests for deferrals. Their target is to end up by 3pm next Tuesday (September 1st) with a full complement of students for the course.
Included in this number are a percentage of applicants from outside the European Union and UK who pay substantially higher fees (€30,000-€40,000).
Where a university has fewer applicants than places available, they do what any business does: they have a sale (vacant places). It is updated each week on the CAO website until all places are filled. Anyone, including existing applicants, can apply for a fee of €50. If you have already accepted an offer of a course but are not happy with it and would prefer a vacant places one, you can amend your CAO application record and place the vacant place course above the one you were previously offered and you will receive the new offer a few days later.
This weekend, hundreds of applicants who did not receive an offer on Wednesday last even though they had more than the published CAO points are scrambling to rectify errors in their application record which they did not spot when the CAO sent it to them to check in May – a wrong Leaving Cert number, a language exemption not registered with the CAO or some other data error. Round-two offers, where they occur at all (universities are not obliged to offer places to applicants who made an error in their applicant data), are, in the vast majority of cases, the correction of administrative errors and those to applicants who have registered for vacant places in the past few days.
Where an applicant has sought a deferred place and secured it, they will still be offered a higher-preference course if it becomes available. They can, of course, then seek a deferral of that place.
[ Still plenty of options for those who didn’t receive an offerOpens in new window ]
Current Leaving Cert students who decide over the weekend to appeal a grade and seek a remarking of their result in a particular subject will receive the results on Friday, September 25th. Every year an average of 20 per cent of scripts appealed are upgraded and in some cases this takes the candidate into a higher CAO band, securing additional points that put them ahead of the cut-off point for one of their higher-preference courses.
Under the CAO system they are entitled to an offer of a place on that course and the university will offer them one. Are places held in reserve for such applicants? No. As far as the universities are concerned they are up and running from early September and if somebody falls away in the first few weeks they will immediately offer that place to the next applicant on the list in that week’s third/fourth round of offers.
If come September 25th there happens to be a place or places still available they will accommodate the highest-points applicant who has been upgraded. All other applicants will be offered a deferred place for 2027 entry. Some callers to the Irish Times helpline are of the opinion that the Leaving Cert and college offers systems are part of one system. They are not.
The universities are separate institutions and although they draw the majority of their applicants from the current year’s Leaving Cert students the systems are totally separate. They will accommodate an upgraded student if it suits them and a place happens to be available post September 25th, and will guarantee them a deferred place if not.
If, as one caller asked, a student gets an appeal upgrade, and subsequently gets an offer of a higher-preference course, do they have to accept the higher preference offer? No, they are perfectly entitled to continue with their existing course. This also applies to any applicant who starts into a lower-choice course next week and gets a higher offer subsequently. They are perfectly entitled to remain on their existing course.
Other callers questioned tuition fees.
What happens with tuition fees if you withdraw from your course during the year?
Do you automatically have to pay the full tuition fee for the following year in a new course?
Students are given about a month in September and January to determine if they are happy to remain on their course. If, by the cut-off date, they have not formally withdrawn in writing, the Higher Education Authority will pay the university in question the funding associated with that student for the first half of the year. The process is repeated for the second half in January/February 2027.
Where such a student withdraws they will be charged the full economic cost of the proportion of any new degree they take up next year or in subsequent years, which they were registered for before formally withdrawing.
Any student who falls away from a course without going through the formal withdrawal process is clocking up a very big bill for themselves or their parents if they choose to return to college at a later date.
Tuesday, September 1st, 3pm
Closing date for receipt of acceptance of CAO round-one offers.
Monday, September 7th, 2pm
The CAO makes round-two offers available to applicants online. The minimum points required for entry to each course are released on the CAO website later that day.
Wednesday, September 9th, 3pm
Closing date for receipt of acceptance of CAO round-two offers.
Friday, September 25th
Results of Leaving Cert appeals are released by the SEC to students. Students whose scripts have been upgraded may receive a new offer of a place on a course higher up their CAO order of preference previously offered. The offer may be for the 2026 academic year, but in some cases where there is no capacity to accommodate additional students on a course the offer may be for a place in the 2027 academic year.
