The Central Applications Office (CAO) has today, Thursday, August 15, issued 74,657 Round One offers to 51,513 Leaving Certificate students who sat the state exams in June.
These offers comprise 43,851 Level 8 courses, and 30,806 Level 7 and 6 courses – of which 627 are for agricultural programmes.
552 of those offers are to candidates whose first preference is agriculture.
In 2018, there were 542 offers with 475 students opting for agriculture as their first preference – this indicates an increase of 85 applications on last year.
Also Read: Top marks for agricultural science students in this year’s Leaving CertificateMeanwhile, the points for the various courses this year have also been released and with regard to agriculture there are a number of choices available to candidates.
Level 7 and 6 agriculture courses are available at the various institutes of technology around the country.
What’s on offer…
Cork Institute of Technology’s agriculture course is 279 points; Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology’s agricultural technology course is 200 points, while the agricultural engineering course comes in at 282 points.
Down in the Institute of Technology in Tralee, 228 points will allow applicants entry onto the agricultural engineering programme, while 271 points are required for agricultural science.
With regard to Level 8 agricultural courses, 399 points are required for entry onto the agri-biosciences degree at Cork Institute of Technology, while applicants for the agricultural technology programme require 288 points for consideration.
The agriculture course at Dundalk Institute of Technology is 303 points, while entry onto the agricultural engineering degree at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology requires a minimum of 301 points.
Meanwhile, Letterkenny Institute of Technology requires 300 points for its agriculture course, while agriculture science at Waterford Institute of Technology has 378 points attached for entry.
Agricultural science at University College Dublin (UCD) requires a minimum of 425 points for entry to its programme.
Careful consideration
Eileen Keleghan, CAO communications officer, has asked applicants to carefully consider any offers received in this round.
“One of the common queries that we receive at the offers stage is around order of preference.”
She continued: “Applicants are reminded that if they receive a lower preference offer they can accept this offer and it will not prevent them from receiving an offer of a course higher up on their courses list in a later offer round if a place becomes available and they are deemed eligible.
Those who have received an offer in this round should consider the current offer as being the only one they may receive.
“It is important that applicants notify CAO immediately using the ‘correspondence section’ of their CAO account if there are any errors or omissions in their CAO account.
“They must make sure to do this well in advance of the next offer round to allow any corrections to be considered in subsequent offer rounds.”