CAO Points Rising?

yoyojc

Not sure if there's a thread on this already? But in terms of courses like medicine lets say, the points have been steadily rising for years now, are they expected to rise AGAIN next year?

ynwa14

I can't see courses like medicine ever not rising to be honest. It's all about demand. The demand for medicine will never drop drastically, especially with the amount of people who repeat their leaving once or twice to try and get in.

As for other courses, no way to tell. It's literally supply and demand, the more people who apply for a course in a year, the more the points will probably rise. Remember, it's your results that affect where the cut off will be. It's not determined by anything else. Trying to guess is basically a waste of time, but trends are usually a good indication. Apart from my first choice course last year, which had been dropping by five or ten points over the past few years and then suddenly skyrocketed up 30 this year. That was for Sports science. So you never know.

Just Like Heaven

Points rise slowed down significantly this year for medicine so looks like it's started to level out (I'm not saying it's stopped though). But it's hugely dependent on the mean hpat score each year which has generally risen as well.

Points haven't necessarily risen across the board, loads of sectors have seen drops in the last few years whereas things like computer science have of course shot up.

Some people will wanna do things like primary school teaching, medicine, law, science, nursing etc. No matter what, but the points do tend to react to the trends of job buzzes over time.

Bassfacewhy

Same with business.

Here's UL business last 5 years

(410) +35 (375) (390) (385) (385)

DCU

(440) +15 (425) (420) (420) (425)

UCD

(475) +10 (465) (445) (445) (450)

Mr Pseudonym

fewtins wrote: »

Points rise slowed down significantly this year for medicine so looks like it's started to level out (I'm not saying it's stopped though). But it's hugely dependent on the mean hpat score each year which has generally risen as well.

As fewtins implied, it's likely that the LC points aren't rising: in the year before the HPAT was introduced, points were lower for all Med courses than they were in 2005, and there was a downward trend in median-scores, as well. The HPAT scores are kinda odd. The upper-most decile (top 10%) seems to stay constant for two consecutive years, before then increasing (I can't think of any reason for that being the case). It has increased by 14 points between '09 and '13. The HPAT graphs provided on website are too vague to be able to extrapolate much else, but it seems as if the graph (when comparing 09/13) has just shifted to the right rather than there being a change in distribution.

We must also consider that there has been considerable grade-inflation. I find in frankly amazing that it doesn't receive more attention in the Media. In the UK, you can guess that, every year, there will be complaints about grade inflation and "dumbing down", and about the percentage of Oxbridge's class which is privately schooled (even though places like St Andrew's and Durham are just as guilty). In Ireland, there'll be a piece on the highest achieving student, a mention of Higher Maths failure rates (FYI, the real reason for such a low Higher Maths take-up is that more people sit Ord Maths than Higher at JC (a startling stat!!) and they're very unlikely to switch up), and then nothing else of substance.

Median ≥400 (%) ≥500 (%)
2000 300 24.8 5.7
2013 335 43.4 9.7
% Increase 12 75 70


So, in conclusion, there are two forces which increase points: changing priorities and grade inflation. The larger the course and the higher the points, the less likely the minimum is to drastically change.


Check out (if you already haven't) the cool CAO Points Checker which was brought to my attention by a thread in this forum.

Days 298

Anyone think science will rocket, establish or drop in TRN or UCD? They really should be meeting demand with additional places. WOuldnt mind paying a bit more fees if it reduced the tendency of some courses like Chemical and Process Egn in UCC.

yoyojc

fewtins wrote: »

Points rise slowed down significantly this year for medicine so looks like it's started to level out (I'm not saying it's stopped though). But it's hugely dependent on the mean hpat score each year which has generally risen as well.

Points haven't necessarily risen across the board, loads of sectors have seen drops in the last few years whereas things like computer science have of course shot up.

Some people will wanna do things like primary school teaching, medicine, law, science, nursing etc. No matter what, but the points do tend to react to the trends of job buzzes over time.

Yeah it's interesting though. I agree that Medicine will probably rise again this year but I really wish it begins to level out...

nsc_p091

Does anyone have any idea of social work in TCD and whether or not points will rise or fall?

Huell

Days 298 wrote: »

Anyone think science will rocket, establish or drop in TRN or UCD? They really should be meeting demand with additional places. WOuldnt mind paying a bit more fees if it reduced the tendency of some courses like Chemical and Process Egn in UCC.

UCD will soar but i say TCD will stay around the same