Today's post brings an end to the suspense in more than 60,000 homes. College applicants who sat the Leaving Certificate in June and got their results last Wednesday will receive their CAO offer notices.
There is good news for four out of five applicants, who will get at least one offer. Some applicants will receive two offers, as the CAO treats certificate/diplomas and degrees separately. Of course, they can only accept one.
In all, 49,993 of this year's 63,145 applicants got at least one offer in the first round. There were 29,450 degree offers, with 13,516 of these being the first choice of the candidate. Almost three-quarters of the degree offers were among the applicants' top three choices.
At certificate/diploma level, some 43,663 offers were made. Just over two-thirds of these were first-preference offers, with almost 90 per cent being among the applicants' first three choices. Earlier this month, 3,528 offers were made to candidates, such as mature students, who were not waiting on this year's results.
The publicity which continues to surround the increases or decreases in cut-off points has little basis in reality. Cut-off points are a function of supply and demand. Courses such as medicine, with a small number of places and a high demand, retain high cut-off levels, regardless of the general expansion in the provision of college places. On the other hand, it is well within the ambit of most school-leavers to secure a place in the often-undervalued institutes of technology.
Noting the continuing mismatch between demand and supply, the Commission on the Points System has recommended that there should be a regular review of places on health-care courses with capped numbers. The commission states that, "in undertaking such reviews, it will be important to ensure that no single interest group should have an overriding voice in fixing quotas".
Already, this year the Minister for Education and Science has announced an increase in pharmacy places in forthcoming years, while UCD has increased the number of physiotherapy places for students entering college this autumn.
Options for school-leavers have never been so plentiful. In addition to some 34,000 third-level places, there are 20,000 Post Leaving Certificate places as well as opportunities with FAS, nursing education, Teagasc, CERT and other training agencies.
Perhaps one index of the increasing opportunities for school-leavers is the steep decline in the number of students repeating the Leaving Certificate. This year, 3,889 repeat candidates entered for the exam, compared to 5,013 last year.
The CAO continues to provide an efficient service to college applicants. This year, for the first time, students can check their offer on the CAO website and a list of vacant places will be updated daily. The Commission on the Points System has recommended the continuation of the current centralised application system. This seems sensible in view of the virtues of its transparency and freedom from nepotism.