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It has been a long and difficult year, but the wait for this year’s crop of future third graders ends today.
Tens of thousands of applicants will find out this afternoon if their college application has been successful when they receive Round One offers through the Central Application Office (CAO).
The Round One offering constitutes the main body of offers that takes place after the issuance of the Leaving Cert results, or as in the case this year, the calculated ratings, which were made available last Monday.
The Irish Times will provide coverage online, on mobile and print throughout the day and over the weekend.
Our coverage will include news, analysis, and expert opinion, plus tips and updates from students, teachers, and experts.
Guidance Counselors Brian Howard and Deirdre Garrett will be available at irishtimes.com/helpdesk beginning at 2 pm to answer your questions about college offerings. Readers can also email inquiries to [email protected].
The help desk will reopen on Saturday at 10am. M. And it will run until 7pm. M. It will reopen on Sunday morning and will remain in operation until 1:00 p.m.
The Irish Times will continue its coverage through the weekend with a special supplement on Saturday with full CAO listings, news, extensive advice and analysis.
First round offers
Round One offers will be available to view online starting at 2pm and selected applicants should also receive an offer notification via email and text message if they selected this option during the application process.
Students can choose to accept the offer immediately if they wish, but have time to consider their offer, as the deadline for acceptance of the Round One offer is 3pm on September 16.
According to figures released by the CAO, the CAO received 78,168 applications this year, an increase of 462 applications from the previous year.
The first preference data, released by the CAO in July, provides some indication of where demand is increasing and decreasing this year across course categories, such as arts, business, or science, and this may influence the likelihood that points increase, decrease or remain. the same for individual courses.
Some applicants will look up the CAO’s first preference application data in the hope of guessing how the application numbers might affect the allocation of points for the chosen course; but they will have to wait until this afternoon to know for sure if they have secured the university place of their choice.
There are other variables at play. The majority of this year’s CAO applicants (61,043) adjusted their course options in the run-up to the change of mind deadline, a period during which it was announced that Leaving Cert exams would be postponed and replaced with grades calculated.
The 2020 application figures released by the CAO in July showed an increase in applications for the following subject areas: Some of the largest year-over-year percentage increases in applications for honors degree courses include physical therapy (+25 percent), dentistry (+ 17 percent), veterinary medicine and law (+ 16 percent).
There were also increases in courses related to environment (+ 8%), architecture (+ 8%), secondary education (+ 7%), medicine, pharmacy and engineering (+ 6%).
Some of the largest decreases in applications were for humanities (-9%), arts (-7%), agriculture (-5%), and art and design (-3%). Journalism (+5 percent) recovered somewhat from an eight percent drop last year, while social and behavioral sciences also saw an increase (+ 5 percent).
Rising applications for high-point courses may also be a sign that some students were inclined to apply for courses with stronger job prospects amid concerns about rising unemployment and uncertainty surrounding the pandemic.
While it is reasonable to look at these figures in the hope of getting a rough indication of how the courses will fare, it is worth noting that the categories used by the CAO in comparing these figures are quite broad and represent average changes in preferences between sectors, rather than applications to individual courses.
Irish Times Technical Support will be available at irishtimes.com/helpdesk from 2:30 PM. Until 8 p.m. M. On Friday and from 10 a. M. A 7 p. M. Saturdays and from 10 a. M. A 1 p. M. On Sundays to answer any questions students or their parents may have about college applications.
Good luck to you all.
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