How many courses are you supposed to put onto your CAO?

GOCathail

I'm starting 6th year in September, and am curious as to what's the minimum/suggested amount of courses to put onto a CAO form?
Any help from people that have actually went through the CAO system is much appreciated!
Any tips for filling out the CAO is much appreciated. Thanks all.

Canard

Well it just depends how many colleges interest you with how many courses In reality I only have 2 on mine...my second choice is way less points than the rest, I dont really know why they're there, just the whole "put things down in order of preference". I also have 2 Level 7 courses that I would have no intention of taking if I got them. :pac:

There's no right or wrong number, but it's always nice to have a few you'd like and a few backups.

Geo10

I put down 7 Level 8 courses but in reality I'll only be happy to accept my first choice! My first choice is less points than my second anyway! My first choice is like 390 points and I usually get in the 500s in Xmas/ summer/ mock exams so I'm not really worried that I'm not going to get my first choice!
If I was aiming for something in the 500 (or high 400s) points area I would have put way more thought into my backups though!

Nicole.

I have 10 level 8 choices and 10 level 7/6s down but if I didn't get my first choice I'd probably repeat because my first choice should be bellow 400 points. I'd advise you to think about your choices very carefully, especially the order that you put them in. You only have to put one course down but this is extremely risky and not advisable.

Canard

Yeah I'm kinda the same as Geo10 - always got 500's in tests on all my subjects at once like summer/mocks and my first choice is 410 so I'm not worried really, but thats definitely another factor OP, if my first choice was 490 I wouldn't have just 2 choices down! Making sure you'll get something you're happy with is the main thing!

spurious

Enough to cover all possibilities while still staying within the fields you have an interest - always with the courses that most interest you higher on the list, NOT the ones needing most points.

finality

Enough to make you feel confident of getting a course you'd like to do. But definitely in order of preference. I have medicine down sixth but my first choice is only 410 points or something like that. I know I'm getting my first choice but I still felt weird not filling it out completely. :L

You can change the courses on your CAO up until the July after your leaving cert and by then you'll more than likely have a good idea of whether you need to put down a lot of back ups or not.

chomps_x

I only put 2 Level 8 courses and 1 Level 7 haha :P

DylanII

GOCathail wrote: »

I'm starting 6th year in September, and am curious as to what's the minimum/suggested amount of courses to put onto a CAO form?
Any help from people that have actually went through the CAO system is much appreciated!
Any tips for filling out the CAO is much appreciated. Thanks all.

Last year I only put down one - Finance and Economics at NUI, Maynooth. That was because I was determined to do that course at that college, I wasn't settling for UCD or Trinity and I was willing to repeat if necessary. However I would not suggest that anyone do the same.

I think most people should put down 10.

imelle

well the way i see it is there's 10 spaces on the CAO what's the harm in filling up the 10 level 8 spaces, and just throw a few level 7s down too. at the end of the day you don't know what way points will go and what you're going to get.
the reason i'm saying this is because i know a lad who got 510 points, he had 5 courses on his cao but didn't get the points for any of them so got no offers. there are so many courses that he would have had points for and could've done but he ended up having to take a year out and re-apply the following, ya might as well fill it up and have a few low point courses towards the end just in case (as long as they're courses you want to do of course - like backdoor courses into what you want)