A record 84,000 students have applied for college places through the Central Applications Office (CAO) this year, placing additional pressure on the entry system, particularly for high-points courses.
The Irish Times reported today that a record 85,000 students have applied for college places through the CAO, a nine per cent increase from last year’s 79,000.
“Education sources” told the Irish Times that this figure has since climbed by several thousand since the deadline for late applications passed on May 1st.
Increased demand for college places this year and the pressure on particular courses was shown in a breakdown of CAO applications by the regular February 1st deadline.
Trinity courses saw a 38 per cent increase in first-preference applications through the CAO, with 10,253 applicants listing it as their first preference.
This year’s leaving certificate students have the option of receiving accredited grades from their teachers, or sit the exam as normal, or a combination of the two. If students avail of both, they will be awarded the higher mark of the two. The vast majority have chosen to do both, with 81 per cent of students intending to sit the English exam.
Last year’s calculated grades process resulted in grade inflation and a major increase in CAO points, and it is expected that this year’s inflation could be greater.
In January, Higher Education Minister Simon Harris confirmed 2,000 additional higher education places “to deal with the demographic pressures” that the sector is currently facing.
Where the additional places will go has yet to be decided. According to the Irish Times, senior sources have said they will target high-demand areas such as health, law, business, the environment, and journalism.
But sources in higher education have warned that places in notoriously high-demand courses such as medicine, dentistry and engineering have “maxed out” due to a combination of physical constraints and limited clinical placements.
“We simply can’t accommodate any more applicants to these types of courses”, one senior third-level source told the Irish Times.
“We don’t have the lab space, we don’t have access to additional clinical places, so I don’t see where these places can go.”
Last year, The University Times reported that Trinity’s Schools of Medicine and Dentistry said they would not be offering extra places for incoming freshers.
Following the government’s announcement of 1,250 additional CAO places for “high demand” courses such as medicine, law, and engineering, Head of Trinity’s School of Medicine Michael Gill cited multiple obstacles to offering additional undergraduate medicine places.
He told this newspaper in an email: “We were approached by the Senior Lecturer about the potential for extra places in Medicine this year. However, with severe limitations on clinical placements, chronic underfunding of undergraduate medicine, restricted numbers of Intern placements, requirements on quality expected from our regulating authority (the Irish Medical Council), and the impact of COVID-19, we responded to say that unfortunately, we were unable to increase numbers this year.”
Similarly, Trinity’s School of Dentistry was also approached regarding expanding the incoming freshers cohort, but said it would not provide any extra CAO places for the 2020/21 academic year.
