More than 57,000 young people in Ireland are receiving CAO offers for places in college and university today.
The Central Applications Office has today issued a total of 85,894 Round One Offers to 57,296 CAO applicants.
The vast majority of students who received an offer, 82 per cent, have been offered one of their top three preferred courses, and more than half have gotten their first choice.
The majority of today’s offers, 51,807, are for places in Level 8 courses, an increase of more than 2,000 on last year.
Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris said that today is a “major milestone” for the students receiving their CAO offers, and starting onto higher education.
“This cohort of students completed most of their Leaving Cert cycle under the cloud of COVID-19, and all the challenges to learning that brought.”
“They showed incredible drive, understanding and flexibility to ensure the system worked, and for that I want to thank them, and of course their teachers.”
An additional 1,056 targeted college places were offered through the CAO for the 2022/2023 academic year, while 16 new apprenticeship programmes are being developed.
CAO applicants can check to see if they have received an offer by logging in to their account using the ‘My Application’ facility at www.cao.ie from 2pm today.
Successful applicants will also receive an offer notification via email and a text message if they have selected this option on their application form.
Separate emails and texts will issue in respect of Level 8 and Level 7/6 offers. There will be no postal offer notice.
Eileen Keleghan, Head of Communications for CAO, asks applicants to carefully consider any offers received in this round. “One of the common queries that we receive at the offers stage is around order of preference.”
“Applicants who receive a lower preference offer can accept this offer, and it will not prevent them from receiving an offer of a course higher up on their courses list in a later round should a place become available and they are deemed eligible.”
“Those who have received an offer in this round should also consider the current offer carefully as it may be the only one they will receive.”
Any CAO Offers received by students must be accepted by 3:00 pm on Wednesday, September 14.
The Second Round of CAO Offers will come on Monday, September 19, at 10am.
