The Leaving Cert results have landed and you have received your CAO offer, so what next? Guidance counsellor Aoife Walsh guides you through the processes of accepting your CAO offer, deferring your college place if you prefer, and how to access grants and financial supports.
Accepting your offer
There is no rush — you have until Wednesday to accept an offer
The arrival of CAO Round 1 offers brought joy and relief to many households.
Undoubtedly, it has also led to confusion and stress in others.
Anyone with an offer has until 3pm on Wednesday to accept. Therefore it is important for applicants not to rush into accepting, if they are unsure about it — but neither should they spend too long deciding.
Applicants who will accept their offer should do so online. Many students will have received two offers, one from the Level 8 list and one from the Level 6/7 list. If so, they must choose between them. For many, this will be an easy decision and it is expected that over half of acceptances will be made online today.
Some applicants will need more time to consider.
In previous years, disappointed candidates often appealed their Leaving Cert grades and, if the outcome made them eligible for a course, they got that offer and generally had the option of taking it up that year. While there is a process for appealing calculated grades, it is merely to check that there were no administrative errors, so it does not present the same potential for upgrades this year.
There is, however, the possibility of sitting the November exams. Some may see it as an opportunity but others as a complication.
Students can combine the best results from the November exams with their best calculated grades which may lead to a desired offer, based on 2020 points. But they will not be able to take up that place until 2021. It would be as if they deferred it.
In order to accept an offer, applicants should log into their CAO account and follow the instructions. If they decide not to accept, there is no need to notify the CAO. The offer will be passed on to another applicant in the next round if no action is taken before the deadline.
Receiving an offer of any place in higher education is a huge accomplishment and one that should be celebrated. Take some time to savour this achievement with family and friends before considering the next step.
A common reaction to a disappointing offer is to hit the accept button immediately, without thinking through other routes and options.
If an applicant finds themselves in this situation, it can be very helpful to seek professional advice. They can do this by calling the National Parents’ Council Post Primary helpline or by contacting the school guidance counsellor.
With a little time and the right support, those who find themselves in a confused and difficult situation on offers day are normally clear and happy with their decision by the time the acceptance deadline arrives.
If you decide not to accept your offer, there is no need to notify the CAO.
How to defer
You can ask your college to hold place for a year
Every year when CAO offers are made, some successful applicants decide that, while they want to pursue the course, they don’t want to take it up immediately.
Colleges are open to requests for a deferral. Deferring means that you have accepted, in principle, and that the institution agrees to hold your place for one year, in this case, allowing you to enter in 2021. It is important to note that anyone who wants to pursue this option does not formally accept the offer, but instead seeks the deferral before the deadline for acceptances of the particular offer.
Deferral is not guaranteed and colleges deal with requests on a case-by-case basis. While seeking to accommodate students, they are mindful of the need to keep adequate places open for the following year’s applicants.
There has been much speculation that more students will seek a deferral this year, perhaps because of the shift towards online learning or a fear of physically attending on campus for health reasons. Based on the experience of CAO Round A and Round Zero, which precede Round 1, the level of requests is on a par, or a little less in some cases, with previous years. Covid concerns have been mentioned as a factor in some of the deferral applications arising from those two rounds of offers.
On the other hand, the lack of work and travel opportunities this year may encourage someone who might otherwise have considered seeking a deferral, to take their place this autumn.
The rules and procedures vary a little between colleges. In general, deferrals won’t be approved if students want to take up another CAO place in the current year or for someone who wants to repeat the Leaving Cert. Colleges will allow deferrals for someone who wants to enrol in a one-year post-Leaving Certificate (PLC) course.
DCU says that there are no changes to its standard process but that it is aware of the many factors students have to take into account, particularly this year, and it will be “as flexible and considerate as possible.”
UCC has made a slight amendment to its protocols, in that those applying on the basis of medical conditions are prioritised, once the application is accompanied with a medical cert/doctor’s letter.
NUI Galway, University of Limerick and Maynooth Univeristy are operating their standard polices.
Practice in UCD is to have a deferral limit of 5pc of places for each programme and that remains the same.
TCD says it will endeavour to grant as many deferral requests as it can, but that “there will be a limit on the number of deferrals that can be granted for all courses”.
Finance, travel or accommodation may be factors for those considering a deferral this year, and colleges will work with students facing such challenges to see if they can be overcome.
Anyone thinking about a deferral should consider it carefully and, perhaps, talk it through with a guidance counsellor on the National Parents’ Council Post Primary helpline (1800 265 165)..
How to access grants
There's still time to apply for a grant...
For anyone planning to attend further education, such as a post-Leaving Cert course, or higher education, the main source of financial assistance is the Susi grant. Susi is the centralised system through which student grants are processed. The application process is online at susi.ie
Susi has already approved grants for about 70,000 students for 2020/21, including 2020 school-leavers and/or students who have become eligible because their family finances have taken a Covid hit.
But there are a number of reasons why students may not yet have applied. It is not unusual for young people to struggle with choices about their future and the circumstances this year will have made the decision whether or not to attend third level even more difficult for many.
Students do not have to wait to accept a place on a course to apply for Susi.
The advice for all young people even considering further or higher education, who think they may be eligible for a Susi grant, is to apply as soon as possible, to avoid any unnecessary delays in payment, even if they later decide not to attend college.
Grants are means-tested and applications are generally assessed on the basis of the previous year’s income. There is also provision for sudden change in financial circumstances and 2020 has seen a dramatic downturn for a large number of households. Many families who would not have considered seeking a grant in early 2020 may now need to access this support.
Those families should make an application through susi.ie.
They should complete an application providing their financial information for 2019. Then, in Section F, applicants will be asked ‘Did you have a change of circumstances in relation to your reckonable income (since 2019) that you expect to be ongoing for the foreseeable future?’ If an applicant answers ‘yes’ to this question, they will have the opportunity to provide more information.
There are different categories, but a student who is dependent on parents will be assessed on their own income and that of their parents/legal guardians.
As well as income and the number of children in a family, an important factor in the amount awarded is distance from college. A higher rate (non-adjacent) is paid to students living more than 45km from college. An adjacent rate applies to students living within 45km. There is also a special rate if a family is in receipt of a specified social welfare payment.
Anyone interested should begin by completing the Eligibility Reckoner on susi.ie. If the chance of success looks good, they should work through the application process.
The rules of the scheme as it applies to students living in Direct Provision have been relaxed this year.
There is no longer a requirement to have spent three years in the Irish school system and to have obtained the Leaving Cert. Applicants will still have to meet the requirement to have been in the Protection or the Leave to Remain process for three years.
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