Main Points
- CAO points requirements for courses will be revealed this afternoon at 2pm
- This comes after more than 70,000 Leaving Cert pupils received their exam results on Friday
- There are 5,000 more CAO applicants in 2026 than were in the system in 2025, something that will push up points overall
- However, a further reduction in enhanced grades in 2026 will also lead to an easing of points
Key Reads
- Will CAO points rise or fall? The questions students are asking
- Leaving Cert points calculator: How many CAO points are your results worth?
- What can you do if you don’t get your first CAO choice?
- Leaving Cert results and CAO 2026: our experts answer your questions
Slight rise in points at Trinity College Dublin
Entry requirements rose by an average of 0.5 points for Level 8 courses at Trinity College Dublin.
Higher points courses saw their points level fall by an average of 2.3 points while lower points courses rose on average by 7.8 points.
Medicine has increased from 739 to 741.
The demand for nursing courses has risen across the board. For instance, Intellectual Disability Nursing saw points rise to 388 from 338.
In Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, English Studies rose 13 points to 546 while Ancient and Medieval History and Culture rose 28 points to 497.
Computer Science courses have seen a drop in points amid a fall in applications, with Computer Science going from 543 to 519.
Seven courses are being offered at random selection, up from six in 2025. They are Law (578), Medicine (741), Dental Science (625), Physiotherapy (567), Occupational Therapy (543), Global Business (601) and Business, Economics and Social Science (567).
Points increase at University of Galway
Ponts at the University of Galway increased in 25 courses, the college has said.
These include courses offering Gaeilge, such as BComm (Gaeilge) and BA (Gaeilge agus Leann Aistriúcháin), cutting off at 488 and 405 respectively.
Programmes in the creative arts saw increased demand with the BA (Drama, Theatre and Performance) increasing by 44 points to 404 and the BA (Music) up by 12 points to 413.
The main science degree, BSc (GY301) cut off at 455, up 15 on last year and increases were also seen in Earth and Ocean Sciences, Biotechnology, Marine Science and Financial Mathematics & Economics.
Nursing and Midwifery saw continued growth, in particular the Bachelor of Midwifery Science increasing from 429 to 498 points.
Courses at UCD remain broadly stable, but with some increases
All courses at University College Dublin required over 400 points this year, for the second year in a row, the college has said.
Eleven courses at UCD saw their points increase in the first round of offers for 2026.
These were in the areas of social sciences and humanities, food science, human nutrition and mental health nursing.
However, generally speaking points across UCD’s undergraduate programmes remained broadly stable.
There was a slight overall decline compared with last year, the college said.
The UCD course with the highest points was Economics and Finance at 625, the same as last year, followed by Actuarial and Financial Studies at 602.
The entry points for Medicine are 738, including the HPAT.
The largest increases in first-preference demand for undergraduate courses were Food Science, Physiotherapy, Sport and Exercise Management and Psychology.
Points remain relatively similar in hard to access courses
Applications for veterinary medicine, physiotherapy and medicine all increased this year, as well as in the fields of engineering and architecture.
For this reason we were not expecting to see any points drop across these areas.
A quick look at some of the colleges offering these courses shows this to be true.
Medicine in UCD has remained the same at 738 points (including HPAT).
Medicine in Trinity College Dublin rose slightly from 739 last year, to 741 this year.
Veterinary Medicine at UCD went from 590 last year, to 589 this year.
Physiotherapy at the University of Limerick went from 589 last year, to 579 this year.
Points fall as predicted in some courses
Sources had indicated that CAO points requirements would fall for information and communication technology (ICT) programmes this year, with a smaller decrease for agriculture and primary teaching.
This has been borne out.
Points dropped slightly for Primary Teaching at Dublin City University, going from 485 last year in round one to 473 this year.
Computer Science at University College Dublin has dropped from 542 last year to 510 this year.
Agricultural Science at UCD has dropped from 432 last year to 417 this year.
CAO Round One offers are released
Some 90,866 Round One CAO offers have now been released to students across the country.
These offers consist of 56,618 Level 8 course offers and 34,248 Level 7/6 course offers.
You can check to see if you have received an offer by logging in to your CAO account using the ‘My Application’ facility at cao.ie.
Some applicants may receive an email containing two offers: one from the Level 8 list and one from the Level 7/6 list. Applicants must choose between these lists and can only accept one offer per offer round.
Offers must be accepted by 3pm on Tuesday, September 1st.
We will be looking at the points for various courses to see what has risen, fallen and stayed the same.
In the meantime you can search the points using the course code on our tables below.
Is CAO reform needed?
The CAO points system has a “pressure cooker effect” on young learners and needs to be reformed, a coalition of education activists has said today.
Many young people wll not feel a sense of achievement and excitement today, they argue, and instead will have “a stomach-curling dread,” Tanya Ward of the Children’s Rights Alliance said.
“Maintaining an archaic and anxiety-inducing system to preserve the prestige of university league tables and a hierarchy of professions flies in the face of what our education system should be about.
“The Government promised this review when entering office and now as we approach halfway of that term and a new school year, we want to see some follow through,” Ward said.
Alongside the Irish Second-Level Students’ Union (ISSU), the National Parents’ Union, the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) and the National Association for Principals & Deputy Principals (NAPD), they called for reform of the system.
The Programme of Government committed to “work with the sector to reform the CAO system to ensure that young people are best served by it”.
Harrison Rossiter McGuire, Uachtarán of the (ISSU), said:
“There are parts of the CAO system that have no basis on merit at all. If a course is over subscribed, while the points may go up, for courses where this can’t happen, places are awarded on a lottery system. This is deeply unfair as it massively decreases the value of the work of the student.”
CAO helpdesk
Our guidance counsellors Deirdre Garrett and Brian Howard will be back answering your questions from 1pm today. They can give you quick and clear feedback as you navigate college offers, choices and deciding your next steps over the coming days.
Please contact them using the form below.
Get in touch
If you feel you missed out on your course, are disappointed not to get the offer you wanted, or are delighted today with your fist choice offer, we would love to hear from you.
Please email me at niamh.towey@irishtimes.com.
Key dates
Wednesday, August 26th, 2pm
The CAO releases round-one offers to candidates online. Minimum points required for entry to each course will be available on the CAO website. Shortly afterwards, students who are unhappy with a grade they received and wish to view their marked exam scripts may do so online. There is no charge for viewing marked exam scripts. Students who wish to appeal the result in one or more subjects can apply online through the SEC Student Portal to do so between these dates.
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.
Round One CAO offers are released at 2pm today.
What do we know so far?
- Entry points for Irish colleges are set to remain broadly the same as last year
- There are a total of 95,710 applicants to the CAO this year – an increase of 6,402 compared with last year
- Some 20,527 of this year’s CAO applicants sat their Leaving Cert in a previous year. Many of these students could have higher grades due to increased grade inflation in the years they sat their exams.
- Points for traditionally hard to access courses such as medicine and dentistry are unlikely to fall
- Data from the CAO shows a significant increase in first-preference applications for veterinary medicine (up 82 per cent), physiotherapy (up 27 per cent), and medicine (up 22 per cent).
- In the fields of engineering and architecture, driven by the construction boom, application numbers are up 15 and 12 per cent respectively.
- There is a substantial decrease in interest in information and communication technology (ICT) programmes this year, with applications down 9 per cent compared with last year. Other disciplines seeing smaller declines include agriculture and primary school teaching.
