How to deal with an offer from the CAO if your child is away

As appeared in the Irish Times

THE IRISH Times helpline and podcasts have sought to answer all your many educational and college option questions. Our helplines are now closed, but the podcast is available on The Irish Times website at www.irishtimes.com, which covers many of the main questions which callers have been asking over recent days.
What to do if the CAO offer notice arrived at home on Monday and your son/daughter is abroad on holidays.
Your child has a personal access number to enable them to access their own individual CAO record and offer notice. The vast majority of applicants are accepting the places offered online, from wherever in the world they are.
More than 21,000 did so by lunchtime yesterday, so it very probable that they may have already logged on to the CAO website from their holiday destination, seen the offer/offers made to them, accepted a place online and are now back enjoying their holiday.
Unfortunately, given the number of distressed calls from parents, you may have no way of confirming this.
To reassure our many anxious callers, your son/daughter knows that the CAO was making its offers on Monday 18th August, so it is highly unlikely that you need to do anything at all with the written offer notice, unless your child has asked you by phone or text to do so.
If they have, you should have no difficulties dealing with it. The offer notice may contain an offer for both a level 8 higher degree programmes, and a level 7 ordinary degree/higher certificate course. You should go to the post office and post with whichever portion of the notice you wish to accept, on your son/daughter's behalf.
It is imperative that you are able to discuss this matter with your child before the weekend to ensure that the correct decision is communicated to the CAO. It must be with the CAO in Galway by 5.15pm next Tuesday evening. If it has not received it by that time it will lapse and cannot be recovered.
If you have access to your child's access codes to the offer on the CAO website, you can of course accept the place online on behalf of your child instead of making a paper return.
I have received an offer of my first choice on my course list from the CAO, but have decided that I now want to study my second preferences course. How can I do this?
You cannot be offered a course lower down your order of preference than the one you have currently been offered, so you will not be offered your second choice. The only way you can study a course other than the one you have currently been offered, is to check out the vacant places list on the CAO website at www.cao.ie .
These are courses that have not received sufficient applicants to fill the number of places on offer from the college in question. If, having studied the list, you find a course that you want to apply for, you should go into your record in the CAO website and place the new course above the course you have been offered in round one.
If this facility does not offer you a solution to your problem, your only option is to defer attending college for this year, and to reapply to the CAO again in January 2009, placing the course you now want at the top of your CAO application list.
How are places on the vacant places list allocated?
Colleges are now releasing back into the system any places for which they failed to find an applicant in the first round of the CAO offers. Theses places will be allocated according to the normal CAO rules, ie, that you have met the course entry requirements and are based on the points score of those seeking the vacant places.
If you have not secured a suitable offer to date, it is well worth while keeping an eye on the vacant place list. If you select a course that you want to apply for, amend your application record accordingly. The CAO will list these applicants in order of merit over the next few days and offer these places at the same time as round two offers, on Friday August 29th. After that date, vacant places will be filled on a first-come first-served basis for as long as there are applicants seeking places and colleges trying to fill courses.
I just missed out on my first choice course by five points. What chance do I have of getting my course in a later round, or is there anything else I can do?
The CAO will make a second round of offers to candidates on August 29th following the closing of first-round offers on August 26th. Any places not taken up in round one will be re-offered at that time.
If the course for which you were short five points falls into that category, you may be offered a place in round two at that time. The Irish Times will publish a special supplement on August 29th, with full details of all such points reductions.
If the round two offers do not bring you satisfaction, you still have one more option to consider.
You could submit a request by September 3rd to the State Examinations Commission to have one or more of your papers remarked, in the hope that you will be upgraded in one or more papers. More than 20 per cent of such remarked scripts were upgraded in 2007, so your chances are not negligible.

CAO Announce Course Places Today

On the day that the CAO announce the places being offered in the first round, the Irish Independent runs an article bemoaning the lack of students taking up certain courses leading to a glut of jobs available in the Computing, Construction and Engineering areas, it goes on to say;

Thousands of jobs 'lost' as courses snubbed
By Katherine Donnelly and John Walshe
Monday August 18 2008
THOUSANDS of highly paid jobs are going abegging because colleges can't get enough students for courses that are key to the country's economic future.
Major college courses -- offering a route to high-paid technology jobs -- are struggling to fill places, despite a record number of CAO offers today.
There is deepening concern about the poor uptake in science, engineering and technology -- all of which are regarded as a cornerstone for future growth.
Despite the economic downturn, there are 10,000 vacancies in the computing and the IT sector, and 5,000 jobs available in engineering.
A graphic example of the crisis was revealed last night showing that numbers graduating in computer applications from Dublin City University (DCU) dropped from 224 in 2005 to 70 this year.
Michael Ryan, who is Professor of Computing at DCU, said at a recent meeting organised by the college that there were twice as many potential employers as computing graduates.
He said skills shortages in computing were also underlined by the fact that 35pc of new staff in software companies in the Dublin area come from outside Ireland.
He said hard questions have to be asked about maths teaching in schools.
Today, 46,577 CAO applicants received an offer in the post -- up 3pc on last year, reflecting the bumper 68,112 applications for college entry.
Taking into account mature students and those who applied with a Further Education (FE) qualification, it brings to 52,631 the number receiving an offer.
There will be huge disappointment for almost 15,500 applicants who will get no offer at all today.
These will include many of the 5,000 who failed maths, ruling them out of most third-level courses.
Negative
A pass in maths at ordinary level is required for entry to most computing courses and the high 12.3pc fail rate is likely to have had a negative impact on numbers eligible for an offer.
The trend appears to be having a knock-on effect in the world of work as employers say that lucrative job positions are going unfilled.
But even starting salaries for engineers averaging €31,000 do not seem enough to tempt high-flying students.
Other pointers from CAO Round One include:
l Law has lost its some of its lustre, with a drop in applications contributing to a fall in points on many courses.
l Architecture and other construction or property-related courses have dropped points.
l The annual scramble for medicine keeps it top of the points table, and out of reach of most applicants.
l But other healthcare courses, such as physiotherapy and nursing, are down.
l Primary teaching is buoyant with an across-the-board rise in points.
l Points rose on about 250 Level 8, honours degree courses; dropped on 310; and remained the same on 90 others.
l At the Level 7/6 ordinary degree/higher certificate, more than half the courses dropped points, but more than one-third went up.
l Half of those receiving an offer at Level 8 got their first preference and 79pc their first, second or third choice, compared with 81pc and 96pc respectively at Level 7/6
In maths at higher level, a drop in top grades accompanied by a rise in fail rates reduced the pool eligible for a swathe of engineering courses, where a C3 at higher level is usually the minimum grade required.
Because of the failure to fill all their places, some third-level colleges are holding special maths entrance exams offering a second chance to students to gain entry to engineering and some technology programmes.
Poor
The disappointing results in maths, and in some cases the sciences, compounds a relatively poor uptake in these subjects in schools, particularly at higher level.
Engineers Ireland director general John Power said Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe must prioritise investment in key subjects such as maths and the sciences at primary and secondary level while also addressing third level.
He said engineering was the cornerstone of the Celtic Tiger and must be given priority to reinvigorate our economy again.
"It takes engineering and engineers to create the pitch for other professions, such as lawyers and accountants, to play on."
Overall, today's CAO statistics indicate an upward drift in qualification levels, as Level 8 courses continue to account for a bigger share of the offers. Proportionately more courses are being offered at Level 8, including some that have been upgraded from Level 7/6.
- Katherine Donnelly and John Walshe