Leaving cert students and their parents facing a very busy week in August.
In its first major change within the CAO for over 20 years, this year sees a new and more streamlined schedule for CAO offers to successful students. In conjunction with the state examinations board the CAO have announced that students will now have to wait just 2 days from the date of receipt of leaving cert results until they receive that all important offer of a college place.
In the old system leaving cert results were normally published on Wednesday in mid- August. Students then had a very anxious wait of 5 days up to Monday of the following week. Under the new proposal, this year’s leaving cert results will be published on Tuesday 13th of August and CAO offers will be posted just 2 days later on Thursday 15th of August.
This change is to be welcomed by all. It considerably lessens the stress on students and parents at this time and condenses the entire review of results and waiting period. Students will have until Friday August 23rd to confirm whether they accept their 1st
round offer or not, which means that the whole process could be completed by the end of the third week in August. That gives candidates much more time to prepare for the transition to 3rd level, including finding accommodation if they haven’t already
done so.
Appeals
Yet another benefit arising from this change will be the fact that students will now be able to appeal exam results much earlier than before. One of the major problems with the old system was that by the time the appeals process was complete, in many cases the results of appeals were not available until October. In the case of a student making a successful appeal and receiving an upgraded offer on a higher point CAO course it was often too late for them to take up the offer.
This new timeframe seeks to significantly reduce this anomaly, and candidates will have the results of any potential rechecks by mid-September at the latest.
Here at Whitney Career Guidance we welcome these changes. While it will mean that students face a crunch week in mid-August, the knock on benefits of reduced stress and additional time to plan and prepare for college should prove very beneficial.