What to do if your results don’t meet your expectations

If you are unhappy with a particular grade in any subject you took as a paper in June, or if there is an error in the Leaving Cert results you got today, there is no need to worry as the State Examinations Commission will provide you with whatever supports you need to rectify the problem.

Firstly, in the case of an error on your results sheet, you should immediately bring this to the attention of your school principal or, in the case of external candidates, you should contact the SEC directly. You may have taken a subject at higher level and received an ordinary level grade. Alternatively, you may be missing an entire subject on your results sheet, or have received a grade for a subject you did not take in your Leaving Cert.

In all of these cases it is simply a matter of administrative error, and will be rectified immediately. There may be some delay in relation to the rectification being registered with the CAO, so you may not get the correct offer you are entitled to next Monday, but rest assured that if it is a case of administrative error on the part of the SEC, you will very quickly receive the course offer you are due.

If on the other hand there is no factual error evident on the report sheet, but you believe that the grade awarded does not in any way reflect the pattern of your performance in a particular subject over the past two years, or your perception of how you performed in the examination in June, you will have received a form in the envelope with your results today to enable you to view your scripts on the weekend of August 30th/31st.

To view your scripts you must return this form to your school by next Tuesday, August 20th, and you must personally view the script at the end of the month. You cannot send someone to view it on your behalf, although you may be accompanied by a parent or teacher or any other person you wish to nominate.

View every script
There is no charge for viewing a script and no limit to the number of scripts you may ask to view. As you will be able to see the exact percentage you received once you view your script, you should view every script if you are looking for another five or 10 CAO points to secure a place on your preferred course.

Why should you view a script if you are happy with the grade you received? Each grade such as B1, B2, B3, represents a five per cent band. When the SEC sends out those scripts to be remarked by teachers every September, approximately 20 per cent of such papers are upgraded. One could therefore assume that those candidates who are within one per cent of the next grade up stand a higher chance of receiving an upgrade than those who are four per cent short. Therefore by viewing all your scripts you will know in which subject you are closest to the next grade. It may not necessarily be the subject you are disappointed in.

If, when you view your scripts at the end of August you discover a factual error, this can be rectified immediately by the SEC and does not have to go to a full recheck. There may have been a totting error in transmitting the marks from your answer book to the total mark and grade on the front cover. Or the teacher who corrected your script may have skipped a page and neglected to correct some of your work. If you find any administrative or uncorrected work errors when viewing your script, bring it to the attention of the supervising teacher on the day and they will notify the SEC immediately.

Once they receive your script back from your school, they will rectify the mistake immediately and your revised grade will be communicated to the CAO so that you can receive a revised offer if it is appropriate.

Paper recorrection
Finally, if on viewing your script there are no obvious errors in the correcting teachers' work, but in your view or that of your subject teacher, you should have received a higher mark for the paper in question, you can then request a form from your principal to have your paper recorrected. There is a fee of €40 for this work, but if you are upgraded this will be refunded.

The results of the appeals are published in mid October and if you are one of the 20 per cent of those who appeal each year you are fortunate enough to be upgraded, the revised Leaving Cert result will be transmitted to the CAO and they will offer you a revised offer if appropriate. Unfortunately, given that over half of the first semester will have passed at this stage, it is often the case that you will have to defer taking up your place until the 2014 academic year, although this is not always unavoidable.

You need to discuss the matter with the faculty or college department in question to ascertain what course of action is in your best interest at that stage. If you are already studying for another course you not suffer any adverse college related financial costs as a result of transferring to another programme at that stage.