The Central Application Office’s (CAO) latest data for 2024 applications indicates a surge in applications for high-scoring courses such as pharmaceutical studies, dentistry and veterinary science. The information, logged on March 1st, marks a contrast to the declining interest in sectors like agriculture, environment, computing technology and medicine – even though these fields often offer abundant employment opportunities.
However, the prospective rise or drop in CAO entry points for each course isn’t uniform. It depends on the demand and supply of places in individual courses and the grades bagged by applicants.
The new figures reveal that the CAO received nearly 77,000 applications, marking a slight dip of 1.4% compared to previous years. Northern Ireland submissions have continued on a downward trajectory with a 10% reduction, amounting to slightly above 1,000 applications. This is despite attempts by universities to make schooling in the South more appealing for Northern students by ensuring an equitable conversion of A-level results to CAO points.
Applications from the U.K., however, have seen an uptick of 8% to slightly over 1,000. On the other hand, applications from EU applicants have marginally increased by approximately 1% with just over 5,600 submissions.
The breakdown of applications for level eight honours degree courses demonstrates health takes the lead with 63,000 applications, closely followed by business administration (almost 53,000), arts (41,900), engineering (23,500), information and communication technologies (22,900), biological sciences (22,800), teaching (21,500), and law (17,000).
Annual application trends for 2024 are seeing some sectors becoming more favourable, such as dentistry (+21 per cent), veterinary science (+12 per cent), pharmaceutical studies (+ 8 per cent), food science and manufacturing (+7 per cent), physiotherapy (+5 per cent) and life sciences (+4 per cent). Conversely, areas such as agriculture, occupational health, environment and journalism have seen a noticeable drop in applications.
The health sector is facing varying trends. Noticeable decreases in fields like medicine and nursing of around 4% each, signal a possible decrease in CAO points requirements. However, physiotherapy has experienced a 5% increase in terms of interest.
Overall interest in education has dipped this year by 4%, although there has been a rise in applications for primary teaching roles by 2%. A significant decrease of 10% was recorded in secondary education applications.
The field of law experienced a slight decrease in interest, dipping by 3%, whereas business and administration courses remained stable with a slight 1% increase compared to the previous year.
Several universities have made public application numbers for their individual courses. At Trinity College Dublin, for instance, the largest application increases were noted in courses such as history (20% increase), music education (39% increase), and deaf studies (42% increase). Other notable increases were recorded in engineering with management (21% increase), computer science and a language (27% increase), and children’s nursing (82% increase).
However, Trinity has seen a 5% reduction in applications for medicine for the second consecutive year.
At University College Dublin (UCD), over half of the 40 courses on offer recorded an increase in first choices, with significant year-on-year increases noted in business and law (51% increase), engineering (14% increase), and children’s and general nursing (16% increase). However, demand for UCD courses such as city planning and environmental policy dropped significantly by 40%, while criminology with psychology saw a 37% decrease.
Maynooth University experienced a notable upsurge in applications, particularly for pharmaceutical and biomedical chemistry (an increase of 70%), education — primary teaching/Froebel (52% increase), and psychology (45% increase).
It has been communicated that there is a robust interest in the new courses including the BSc sports science and health course, as well as the BSc food science and nutrition programme.
The CAO’s statistics are liable to alter considering late submissions and after the cut-off for the CAO’s ‘change of mind’ feature on the first of July.
Prospective students will have the opportunity, in the majority of instances, to modify their course preferences up until July first once the ‘change of mind’ system becomes accessible digitally on the seventh of May.
Stay current by following the education column of The Irish Times on Facebook and X (Twitter).