AS THE SUMMER draws to a close and the new academic year comes into view, many teenagers in Ireland will be waiting expectantly for their CAO offers. 

Students who sat the Leaving Cert this summer will receive their first-round third-level course offer from the CAO on Wednesday, and it’s usually a milestone that feels highly consequential. If you have a teenager, or someone you know that is getting their results, here’s everything you need to know about the next steps, especially if it doesn’t go to plan.

Whether or not they get the first-round offer that they were hoping for, it’s essential to remember that there are other routes to higher education and setting off on the career path that speaks to their hopes, dreams and ambitions. 

One such avenue available to students who are reconsidering their options is the Available Places process. Even if a student receives a CAO offer, they don’t necessarily have to stick with it. If they are unsure that their first-round offer is the right choice for them, Available Places offers another opportunity to explore courses and potentially change direction.

Lynda Young, Senior Manager for CAO Recruitment at TU Dublin, explains: 

“It’s a great opportunity for students to reevaluate their choices. For example, last year we had prospective students who thought they had missed out on getting an offer on a course they were interested in, but ended up finding their passion. Some of the courses that have offered places in the past were Electrical and Control Engineering, Business, Science, and Computing.”

Available Places are advertised by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) where vacancies arise following the CAO offer process. They vary from year to year and give students another opportunity to explore courses at universities and colleges across Ireland, including TU Dublin. Students can view Available Places on the CAO website and add an eligible Level 8 or Level 6/7 course to their existing application. Full details on eligibility and how to apply are available from the CAO here.

If you’re working through this with your teenager, remember that Available Places can be an opportunity to reconsider and make a different choice, rather than simply a route for students who did not receive an offer. Think of this as a second change of mind opportunity. Courses should be added in genuine order of preference. If you add an Available Places course to your application and are offered that course, you will not receive any further offers for courses lower down on your preference list. Similarly, you can only add an Available Places course at a higher position than the course you were offered in Round One.

In addition to the Available Places, there are also several further rounds of CAO offers. The second round of CAO offers will be issued on 7 September this year, which will be followed by an eventual third round of offers later that month. 

Whatever happens, it’s important to remember that the first-round CAO offer is not decisive when it comes to your child’s future, and that there are plenty of other pathways into higher education and specific courses that will help them get where they want to go. 

To learn more about Available Places, and which places are available in TU Dublin, bookmark this page on the TU Dublin website ahead of 27 August.