Do points drop MUCH more?

Enda89

Hey, just wondering do the points generally drop by much on round 2 of the CAO offers?

Heres my situation: I got 330 in the LC, and I wants Arts in UCD which is 350.

Am I stupid to even think about getting my hopes up?

Chakar

There two more rounds to go they could drop you never know.

Stepherunie

It is purely dependent on the applicants I'm afraid.

The college will decide the number of places it wants to offer for a course - it then informs the CAO how many offers to send out - this will determine the points.

For some courses the college will decide to send more offers out than there are places, eg a college will tell the college to offer 55 students for a course with 50 places.

As a result some courses will not offer a second round offer as they expect all the places to be filled as they offered too many students places in the first round.

Others will repeatedly offer until all places are filled - this can happen in arts when a lot of people tend to put it down as there backup degree if they don't get the points for the course they want. Thus is may drop or it may not, everything is dependent on the take up in the first round the decision of the college to offer more places.

Hope that explains it a bit for you.

Stepherunie

Chakar wrote:

There two more rounds to go they could drop you never know.

Forgot to say this: There are far more than two more rounds - rounds are infinite by definition if a college so wants until all places are filled.

My course regularly goes to round 7 or 8 due to the high turnover or people into other courses at the beginning.

delta_bravo

i may be mistaken but i think arts has 1200 places in the course. it would be expected that a number of people from those would take another offer. a points drop would be expected but its impossible to tell how many points it will fall. best of luck;)

Stepherunie

You can't actually say that for sure though.

When i got my CAO form I was offered a place on a course and didn't accept - but no second round offers were given out.

Now arts probably will have further rounds and take a points drop - don't want to put a damper on your hopes there enda, but like everything to do with the CAO nothing is for sure.

I do know that they had late rounds for Arts in UCD last year but that's no guarentee for this year.

Enda89

Hmmm...I was never told of a third round of offers I understood it was just Round 1, then they try offer you something better in Round 2 and that's it!

The appealing process would probably get me the extra points I need. But I read in the handbook for the LC that appealing results can take a long time, and the re-grades wont be out until OCTOBER [when Arts in UCD would be well under way].

If I remember correctly, last year Theoretical Physics in Trinity was 510 after the first round, then dropped to 445 after the last round.
So there's always hope.

Drakar

Looking at how much that course had dropped in previous years may give you an indication as to what might happen (as mentioned by people before though nothing is a given).

If you feel you have a good chance of an appeal going through, I'd suggest to do it anyway whether you get the place or not. It costs a small enough price and you don't have to actually do anything except ask for it (provided your teacher is onboard). Your LC grades will often carry through into your first job.

gilroyb

Last year it started at 360 in the first round, and ended at 360 in the last round.

I know that this year is a different group of students, but UCD are fairly good at managing their offers. The fact that the course is so big is actually not a good thing in this case as it means that UCD have nothing to lose really if they offer a few too many places, as they can always fit them in somewhere. It's in the small courses that they have to be careful about not offering too many places in case it's over subscribed, and so have changes in points needed between rounds.

I'd advise rechecks etc, and remember, you can accept whatever your current offer is and still get offered Arts if your points go up.

Good Luck.

Enda89

gilroyb wrote:

Last year it started at 360 in the first round, and ended at 360 in the last round.

I know that this year is a different group of students, but UCD are fairly good at managing their offers. The fact that the course is so big is actually not a good thing in this case as it means that UCD have nothing to lose really if they offer a few too many places, as they can always fit them in somewhere. It's in the small courses that they have to be careful about not offering too many places in case it's over subscribed, and so have changes in points needed between rounds.

I'd advise rechecks etc, and remember, you can accept whatever your current offer is and still get offered Arts if your points go up.

Good Luck.

But the results of the re-checks wouldn't come out until October. So I'm probably wasting my time going down that road.

gilroyb

There is no point being negative. You can either just go with whatever offer you got, opt out of the college route, repeat, just wait till next year and hope the points go down, or have your scripts rechecked. It's something only you can decide.

If you do think you have a chance on any paper though and really have your heart set on Arts, remember that it's a three year course, and at most you'd miss about three weeks. If you got in then it's not really a big time period in the grand scheme of things.

Time for you to make a decision and deal with it. I hope it works out for you.

Enda89

gilroyb wrote:

There is no point being negative. You can either just go with whatever offer you got, opt out of the college route, repeat, just wait till next year and hope the points go down, or have your scripts rechecked. It's something only you can decide.

If you do think you have a chance on any paper though and really have your heart set on Arts, remember that it's a three year course, and at most you'd miss about three weeks. If you got in then it's not really a big time period in the grand scheme of things.

Time for you to make a decision and deal with it. I hope it works out for you.

But wont the course be filled long before October? Surely UCD wouldn't accept a student like myself in after the course has already got underway?

Stepherunie

No, not at all, as far as I know a case where a college hasn't accepted a student only happened once, and they held the student a guarenteed place in medicine the following year.

It is not your fault that your papers were not marked correctly so the CAO does not hold it against you, generally there is not problem about you starting a course late, you just need to be prepared to do teh work to catch up.

Enda89

sounds promising. I'm going to view my scripts next week, then appeal the necessary ones.

Just wanna say a big thanks to all you guys for your generous help!