The Central Applications Office (CAO) has released new statistics which show a six per cent decrease in college applications for level 6 and 7 courses when compared to the previous year. This is reflected in the numbers which went from 42,676 in 2023, down to 39,971 applications this year.
This data comes from the CAO’s “change of mind” statistics, which record the course decisions of students as of the 1st of July deadline. On the 28th of August, the majority of Leaving Cert students are scheduled to receive their college offers in the first round of CAO offers.
An increase or decrease in CAO entry points for individual courses will be determined by the number of spaces available per course, the demand for each course, as well as the obtained grades of the applicants.
The CAO received over 83,000 applications, a number that is slightly down from the previous year. A majority of the applicants changed their course choices during the May-June window. Generally, health courses received the most applications (71,652) followed by business and administration (69,729), arts (51,624), social and behavioural sciences (36,777), and engineering trades (30,213) for honours degree or level eight courses.
Year-on-year, physiotherapy saw a 22 per cent surge in applications, followed by dentistry including dental nursing and hygiene (up 10 per cent), pharmacy including pharmacy technician (up 9 per cent) and primary education (up 8 per cent). Conversely, there was a significant decrease in transport services (down 38 per cent), hygiene and occupational health services (down 16 per cent), and agriculture (down 12 per cent).
Applications were also down 10 per cent for languages, personal services and secondary education courses when compared to the previous year. There has also been a downward trend in applications from the North (down 9 per cent), as well as from outside the EU (down 2 per cent). In contrast, applications from the UK to the CAO have seen a 6 per cent increase, whereas there was no change in the number of applicants from other EU countries.