It was a case of ‘who dares, wins’ for an A-grade student who made almost €3,000 by taking the brave and ingenious step of selling his Leaving Certificate study notes on the online auction site eBay.ie
As revealed in the Advertiser last week, Cillian Fahy, who attended Gort Community School in Co Galway, put his extensive notes in six subjects up for auction in order to finance his third-level education. This bold move has attracted considerable interest over the past number of days with bidding wars breaking out on the most popular subjects.
By the time the auction ended by midnight on Monday, the items, which had an initial starting bid of €40, reached a staggering €2,844.37, a sweet number for any student’s bank balance.
The delighted 18-year-old from New Quay, who received 580 points in the Leaving Certificate, said that the auction had exceeded all expectations and that he was now looking forward to the “excitement and adventure” of studying English literature and mathamatics at Trinity College Dublin this month.
In total, 58 bids were made for the young student’s French notes resulting in a final cost of €1,100, while 56 bids were made for the maths notes resulting in a cost of €1,020. There were 31 bids for English (€271.87 ), 50 bids for history (€192.50 ), 34 bids for Irish (€140 ), and 15 bids for music (€120 ).
Speaking about the surprise success of the auction Cillian said: “Naturally I am over the moon and entirely delighted with the auction. I hope this might encourage other students to do the same and place their notes up for auction on eBay. I believe that students right now face real difficulty in finding any form of work, part time or otherwise. Maybe this could be an opportunity for other students to make some finance before college.
He then thanked the “great” teachers at Gort Community School for always encouraging him to express his own freedom of thought and to add his own views in notes.
“This naturally is what has made my notes unique as opposed to just something out of a normal book. Hopefully if other students do the same next year they will be more encouraged to put down their own view in their notes and in the exam,” said Cillian, who is now selling grinds classes on eBay.ie, an idea he came up with after receiving a huge expression of interest for such a service throughout the recent auction.
