Online student acceptances for places on higher education courses came flooding into the Central Applications Office yesterday, with thousands more expected this morning.
At least half of the almost 50,000 offers issued by the CAO yesterday at 6am were expected to have been taken up by close of business. The CAO system apparently ran flawlessly, with online acceptances at one point exceeding 2,300 per hour.
Students have until 5.15pm on Monday, August 26th to respond to the first round offers, with the second round offer release set for Thursday, August 29th.
Care must be taken when making life-changing choices, said Gerry Flynn, president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors. “Students should select courses based on their genuine interests,” he said.
“A lot of people tend to look at courses in terms of the current economic climate,” he said. “You could have a totally different economic landscape by the time a course is completed four years later,” he said.
Regional variation
A notable aspect of this year's CAO points was considerable variability in points changes. "You are seeing regional variation, where points for some courses are up significantly and not in others," he said. He put this down to the current economic climate, where fewer students are pursuing courses away from their home areas.
Rental costs
An increase in the cost of rental accommodation in Dublin in recent months may hit students hard, a spokeswoman for the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) said yesterday.
As students begin househunting this week, the USI expects to deal with a higher-than-usual number of queries about the cost of rent, according to its welfare officer, Denise McCarthy.
A study by property website Daft.ie has found that rent in Dublin city centre is now 7.5 per cent more expensive than it was 12 months ago. This is due to a decline in available properties.
Students in Cork and Galway may also notice a hike in rent, with an increase of 1.8 per cent and 2.7 per cent respectively. Ms McCarthy said that these changes would severely affect students, especially in Dublin.
Omission
The CAO results published in yesterday's Irish Times supplement left one subject blank. This was Early Irish, offered by Trinity College in its two-subject moderatorship.
Subjects that appear without a points requirement mean that no offer was made in this round, a spokeswoman for the CAO said yesterday.
