With Leaving Cert celebrations in full flow this week students got to enjoy some welcome reprieve from exam and points stress. However, the reality of life and prospects after secondary school are set to hit home from next week when CAO offers and course placings start coming through.
According to Tony Deffely, career guidance counsellor with Mayo VEC at Davitt College, the next few days can prove to be “quite worrying” for students as they await news regarding whether their exam points were sufficient to get them into their desired course options. There will also be concern about the level of points required as where demand is high, entry levels can rise accordingly.
“There are indications points may go up this year because of the economic crisis and more people trying to come back to the workforce. While it is awful that young people are having their opportunities limited by the downturn and more people coming back into education, at the same time they just must be determined and use what opportunities are available to them,” said Mr Deffely.
The best tip is to stay calm, advised Mr Deffely. “For the moment students have their results, there is no point in panicking. It’s the offers that make the difference and if points do go up students face a worrying few days. It can be a very difficult time in your life but the best thing is to stay calm.”
There are still many options available, he added. “It would be wonderful if everybody gets what their first choice is, but the consolation is that those who have filled in their forms fully will have elected 10 options for level 8, ie, four-year degree courses, in order of their choice and then 10 level 6/7, ie, three-year pass degree courses, so if done thoroughly they will have loads of options.
“If not, this either indicates they have gone for a plumper, ie, one particular area, and not broadened their choices, perhaps applying for the same thing in three different colleges. On that basis, without any other options, maybe you should just throw your hands up and consider going back and repeating.”
Spending yet another year in secondary school isn’t the only option, though, as fortunately there are many other third level education options open to students.
“Students are advised to keep an eye on the CAO website which will indicate where there are still open places on courses, due perhaps to there not being sufficient applicants. Also, they would be well advised to check out individual college websites as sometimes colleges bring in courses very late that may not have been included in the CAO.
“Then there is the possibility of studying abroad and information on UK universities is available at UCAS, the University Central Admissions System, which is the British equivalent of the CAO covering England, Scotland, and Wales. This used to be very popular but not as much now because of the fees situation in the UK.”
Mature students
Due to the ongoing difficulty in getting apprenticeship positions in the downturn, Mr Deffely maintains his advice to young people to “ study your way through the recession”.
“The high number of mature students may impact on places but they also add a certain maturity to classes and have a very good work ethic. They also bring a bit of common sense and experience from the real world and students get to meet people who’ve been out there and decided to come back and make sacrifices for education. Given that they also tend to work hard mature students also perform better statistically.”
PLC courses
Mr Deffely also recommended students keep an eye out for PLC (post Leaving Cert ) courses, a selection of which are run by most VECs and which can ultimately lead to a degree qualification.
“A very comprehensive range of these would still be available. Locally Castlebar College of Further Education in Castlebar, Carrowbeg College in Westport, Galway Technical Institute, and a number of other community colleges would run PLC in addition to second level courses. A lot of them will be advertising now so students would be advised to keep an eye on advertisements.”
Further information www.cao.ie
