By Niamh Dwyer, Chairperson of the Kerry Branch of Guidance Counsellors

CAO Round 1 offers will be available to applicants on Thursday, September 8 from 2pm.

You will be able to check your offer(s) by logging into the ‘My Applications’ section of www.cao.ie using your CAO number, date of birth and account password. Offers will also be issued by email and SMS text.

Applicants who have not received an offer will receive a ‘Statement of Application’ email. The cut-off points for 2022 will also be published by CAO on their website once the offers are issued. Many students will receive two offers, one from their Level 8 list (Honours Bachelor Degrees) and one from Level 7/6 (Ordinary Bachelor Degrees and Higher Certificates) and have the option to accept one offer only. You will have the option to accept, decline or apply to defer the offer before the acceptance deadline for Round 1 which is on September 14 at 3pm. Further rounds of offers continue until all CAO places are filled.

Careful consideration of CAO offers

You should carefully consider the offer(s) you receive in the first round as you may not get another offer in subsequent rounds. You may receive an offer from higher up on your preference list in round 2 and subsequent rounds, if for example the points for your chosen courses drop, but there is no guarantee of this, so it is very important to think carefully about accepting the Round 1 offer, provided you are genuinely interested in the course. You will never receive an offer of a course that is lower down on their preference list from what you have already been offered.
Round 2 offers will be available online from 10am on September 14. You are entitled to be offered any place that becomes available higher up on your order of preference list(s) whether you have accepted a place on another course in Round 1 or not. You then have to choose to accept your Round 2 offer or to stick with the Round 1 offer. The closing date for acceptance of Round 2 offers is September 21 at 3pm and the CAO will continue to offer places in the same way up to mid-October when the offer season for 2022 ends.
Apply to defer a college place

If you wish to defer an offer do not accept the offer via the CAO. You need to email the Admissions Office of the appropriate Higher Education Institution (HEI) immediately giving your name as it appears on the CAO application, quoting your CAO number and the course code which you wish to defer and give the reason(s) for the request. ‘Deferred Entry’ must be marked clearly in the subject line of the email, which must arrive in the HEI Admissions Office at least two days before the reply day shown on the offer notice and the HEI will communicate directly with the student. All communications about deferrals must be sent to the relevant Admissions Office, not to CAO.

If no CAO offer is received, firstly check the detail of the Statement of Application email and follow the instructions.

It may be the case the correction needs to be made to the examination, exemption or account information so the advice is to contact the CAO immediately via the Correspondence section of their CAO account. You will also need to check that they have met the minimum entry requirements and the points required for the course in question. Details on minimum entry requirements can be found on the HEI websites and the cut-off points will be available on the CAO website.

Available Places on CAO

The ‘Available Places’ facility opens on CAO on September the 9 at 12pm. These places become available where the HEI still have places available on courses after the Round 1 CAO offers have been issued.

Applications for ‘Available Places’ are open to applicants who are already in the CAO system and to candidates who have not already submitted a CAO application this year but who now wish to apply.

Applicants must meet the minimum entry requirements for the courses for which they wish to apply. Further details can be found on www.cao.ie.

Options outside of CAO

While much attention focuses CAO around the Offer stages it is very important that students realise that CAO is not the only show in town! There are several options outside of CAO which are still available for application, including Further Education, apprenticeships, traineeships, study abroad options, repeating the Leaving Cert, and taking a gap year. For further details on all options see www.careersportal.ie.

Niamh Dwyer is a Guidance Counsellor in Scoil Phobail Sliabh Luachra, Rathmore, and Chairperson of the Kerry Branch of Guidance Counsellors. She is also a Careers Advisor - For details see www.mycareerplan.ie or follow @mycareerplan on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

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