Repeating Leaving Cert at Cork College of Commerce

brian1991

I will probably have to repeat my Leaving Cert the way things are going, and I think my best option is repeating at Cork College of Comm. I want to study International Development & Food Policy at UCC, but I probably can't even get the 400 points needed as I have wasted the past five and a half years so much.

CorkCollege wrote:

Students should have pursued the examination with honours grades in some subjects and must have genuine desire to secure an overall improvement in their results. Students must enrol for six subjects and should preferably have followed the honours course in their previous school.

This should be okay, although I do ordinary level maths.

All applicants will be interviewed on a walk in basis following the Leaving Certificate results and will receive an answer concerning the success of their application by post within three days of the interview.

So has anyone done this interview? Has anyone here repeated the Leaving Cert at Cork College of Comm, basically? Is it difficult to get into? Is it worthwhile?

Thanks in advance,
Brian

pathway33

Can't help but I have 2 suggestions

- Get there very early
- Ask around the UCC forum. I'd say there's a fair few there have gone through CCOM

RetroRainbow

I'm repeating there myself this year. If you do get in, be prepared for having random free hours in the middle of the day. For example, on both a Monday and a Tuesday I've a three hour break between classes. If you're doing Art, it must be done after school. Any 'unusual' subjects are done outside of the school, like Italian, and Music. They're also extremely strict on attendance, even with students taking actual college courses. I think it's something like, if you miss more than 20% of any one term. First you get a letter, than a suspension, I believe. You also have your pre exams during the Easter holidays.

Don't worry about doing ordinary level Maths~ that's what I did, and am currently doing. You can also do ordinary Irish, if you so wish!

I had my interview in August about a week or so after the leaving, and I was horribly nervous. I wore a silly little dress, and yellow shoes, I believe. I was shaking like crazy going in, but I think that the interviewers were nice enough. They made me feel at ease, at any rate, which I was thankful for. You've to fill out a form too before you go into the interview, like why you think you got the results you did. For example, spending too much time at a job, not putting enough work in, etc. I made my interviewers chuckle when I was speaking about my previous school; I told them that I got detention at for speaking English, and that seemed to do the trick! I got the acceptance letter obscenely late though, I think it was on the morning of the orientation day. Lucky I was up and ready by the time the postman came, just in case!

I think that it is worthwhile. I came from an all Irish school, so doing it in English is really standing to me. The teachers really are top there, and there's a study hall open from 8:00 am until 10:00 pm. It's rather daunting in there, though. I prefer to go to the town library to study.

brian1991

Thanks, RetroRainbow! (I wish my username could have been so creative).

koolkitty

Hi brian1991

Having repeated there myself this year,DO NOT to go there. I went there as I couldn't really afford Hewitt and Bruce college, and I thought the teachers there would be very good. I was expecting to be spoon-fed with top notes etc! I would say only go there if you're really willing to do it all on your own if you have to. You see, some teachers there are 'brillant' unfortunately all of mine were'nt so good. Do not do Art (unfortunately I did) as you only get 2hours after school hours on a Monday per week!! And to be fair the Art teacher didnt turn up most of the time. Although he was a nice guy...still wasnt good enough you know. It really puts you off the subject too etc. So I did feck all for it as a result. I blame myself alright but I'm just so disappointed with all of the teachers I got. I stupidly took up Geography, and as any Geog student would know, you need alot of detailed top notes! We bearly got decent ordinary notes and I was doing Higher. The text book for geog is shocking dont buy it! Get exam skills if your gonna do it. Home Ec was difficult, I had done it before but like the course is just massive. We didnt get everything done but the home ec teacher was good. Very strict on attendance lol. I would avoid doing home ec though as there way too much in it!! I did biology,hope to get an A or a B in it, after all I did eat the subject. The biology teacher was good cause she'd scare the **** outta ya haha. Shes v funny too. It was the highlight of my days there. I did ordinary maths. BIG MISTAKE! You see I was handy at in school,however I finished school in 2008 and went and started food science in UCC (dropped out tho coz i hated it) and came to CCOC to repeat. Therefore I hadn't done Maths in 2years. I was very rusty and the teacher was sooooo bad. There are obviously a few maths teachers and hopefully you won't get landed with the same 1 I did. So after making a tough decision to go back and repeat, I fear that I have done worst than last time and will have to wait to be a mature student to get into nursing as the points will prob go sky high. Also, I dont want to mention names, but a certain somebody who's in charge lets say, is horrible. I mean he/she is lovely at the start to lower you in and then through out the year gives you awful looks as if youve murdered his/her family!! Also when I went to inquire about something,this person who was suppose to be helpful,sighed and practically rushed me out of their office as if I really annoyed them and was wasting their time. Im very bitter about this person and wish to make a complaint actually! LOL. So anyway, in all seriousness though, don't go there! Oh and the study hall is a joke. Its not specifically for RLC students,its for the whole college and sometimes you may see people there that don't even attend the college. It is supervised SOMETIMES. But everyone seems to talk anyway. Sorry for ranting on but thats my personally opinion.

Hope you do get your course and don't have to repeat after all! Good luck!

leheaven

Hi

I've been looking online to see if anyone had comments about doing the Leaving Cert at CCOC and came across this! I've an interview coming up soon!
Whats putting me off is the person in charge ,met him/her before and they were so horrible to me, I ended up in tears! lol glad I'm not the only who had a bad experience with that person,wish I'd had made a complaint at the time.
I really want to repeat so that I can get into UCC. Any tips for interview etc would be appreciated! Wish I could apply to other colleges but there too expensive! lol