Most students are stranded in a type of post-exam limbo at present, caught between the heady celebrations of last week's results and the trepidation building ahead of tomorrow's CAO offers.
Students can become brooding pessimists at this late stage in the process.
Those handed dazzling results last week expect the good news to be counter balanced by a dollop of bad news this week. Those whose results were below par last week expect things to get even worse this week
But this pessimism, while predictable and in ways understandable, is unnecessary when one considers the statistics behind the CAO process.
Cause for hope
Last year, for example, almost 75 per cent of CAO applicants received an offer of some kind. So you can reasonably expect some kind of offer, however unwelcome, to land in your hallway tomorrow.
The reason so many applicants get an offer is that students are using the process intelligently and selecting courses which truly interest them and which fall within a reasonable points bracket. However, this is not another way of saying students should settle for second best.
Because of various factors, students still have a good chance of getting not just any old offer, but their number one preference.
Last year more than 47 per cent of degree applicants got their number one choice. An amazing 70 per cent of diploma/certificate students got their first preference. That is a lot of students going away from the CAO process more than happy.
Sticking with degree courses, over three-quarters of students got one of their top three preferences. So the majority of students do not have to settle for something off the bottom of their list, but usually end up with something towards the top.
This year the figures may change of course, but I do not believe they will change radically, so hopes should be high going into tomorrow's offers.
Ironically, the most nervous students may be those whose results were better than expected. They are quietly thinking to themselves: "Maybe, just maybe, I can get a place on that course after all."
Our helpline has been contacted by many students who underestimated their ability in the exam.
They did not believe they could gain a high points score and consequently did not bother putting down certain illustrious courses on their list.
They want to know is there some way they can apply for these courses now? No, is the short and rather dispiriting answer.
The CAO will go down your list and offer you the first course you have the points for. You cannot put other courses down on the list at this stage.
Vacant places
However, some courses will not be able to fill all their places and these courses will be advertised by the CAO shortly. You can apply for a place on these courses regardless of what you put down earlier in the process.
In fact, people who did not even fill out a CAO form back in January can also apply for these so-called "vacant places".
Only a small number of courses usually are in this category.
Points predictions
For every other course applicants will have to stick with the CAO process and hope the points fall the right way.
On points predictions, things have been going well in recent years. Because of the drop in the number of Leaving Cert students, points have generally been on a downward curve. But there is a danger this year students could read too much into that.
The numbers in the CAO application process - as opposed to the Leaving Cert itself - is actually up slightly at 65,627. This is because there are more mature students coming forward and more non-standard applicants such as foreign students and people already in college who want to switch course.
So this means, as far as university places are concerned, that plunging points will not be the order of the day except in areas such as computers, where there has been a real decrease in the number of applications. So those applying for computer science courses are likely to have a happy day tomorrow.
Law, education, engineering, psychology, nursing, medicine, arts and language courses all continue to be very popular and points for them are not expected to fall. Science is unlikely to fall in the same way as it did last year and for some courses there may even a be a small rise.
At the institutes of technology things are likely to be a little more flexible, with points for science and computer-based courses likely to fall in several institutions.
Many courses at private colleges are likely to have very low points because students have to pay full fees and this cuts down the number of applicants in a major way.
It would be dangerous to go beyond general pointers. All you have to do now is wait until 6 a.m. tomorrow when the CAO website (www.cao.ie) publishes the points. Or, if you are cool headed enough, stay in bed and just wait for the postman to call.