External Applicant Leaving Cert question.

usurptheczar

So I'm a school drop out and I'm hoping to sit the leaving cert in June as an external applicant but there's not much info online about how it works. Is it like school where you have mandatory subjects and chosen subjects to take exams on or can you just choose as many or as little as you want. If it is the latter, how many subjects should I take if I have not sat the leaving cert before and what subjects should I take.

readystudypass

When did you drop out of school? There are rules about external students so that a student cannot do the leaving cert externally before they would have done it had they stayed in school.

If you don't break this rule then the application for external students will be on www.examinations.ie next month or January. Closing date should be around the start of February.

The application fee is about €110 per subject up to a maximum of about €300 although in the past this was waived if you had a medical card. Don't know if that is still the case.

You can choose one subject or up to 8 or 9. In your case you would probably want to do a minimum of 5. What do you want to do after the leaving? Go to college? Get a job? Get an apprenticeship? Irish, English and Maths is part of the standard leaving cert unless you have an Irish exemption. Look at what the next stage in your education/career path requires. Leave your options open.

There are some subjects you won't be able to do as an external student. Subjects like ag science, geography, history, religion, home economics and others require project or practical work to be done which has to be signed off by a teacher

If you are doing Irish or a modern language you will need to find a school to let you do the oral exam in April.

For straightforward 100% written exams like maths, english, business etc there are allocated centres in Dublin that allow external students sit the written exams.

For science subjects like physics, chemistry, biology, you are supposed to keep an experiment book and this can be inspected by the department (although the rate of inspection is low).

Best of luck,

usurptheczar

I would have done my Leaving Cert last year, I am eligible to do it, it says two years have to have passes since I've done the Junior, that was in 2012.
I was hoping to do Irish, English, Maths, French, History and Biology. Is there anyway I can do Biology and History as an External student ?

readystudypass

usurptheczar wrote: »

I would have done my Leaving Cert last year, I am eligible to do it, it says two years have to have passes since I've done the Junior, that was in 2012.
I was hoping to do Irish, English, Maths, French, History and Biology. Is there anyway I can do Biology and History as an External student ?

Biology: NUI Maynooth and some other colleges do leaving cert biology experiment days in January I think where they cover a lot of the experiments in one day. You could apply for a place on this. Places fill up quick.

History: You could go to local schools and ask a history teacher if they would supervise your project. You may find a place doing leaving cert history on www.qualifax.ie . If you can't do the project, you can still do the written exam but obviously you will be getting a lower mark overall. If you're interested in history you could try classical studies. That's a pure written exam.

usurptheczar

I was wondering, for finding schools to do the oral exam, do you mean a secondary school or a college which does the leaving cert ?

readystudypass

usurptheczar wrote: »

I was wondering, for finding schools to do the oral exam, do you mean a secondary school or a college which does the leaving cert ?

Yep certainly every secondary school will be conducting oral exams in April. By college I suppose you mean the repeat leaving cert colleges like Rathmines College.

You'll need to contact the school and gain their permission to sit the oral in their school. Some schools do not accept external students so it might be a case of just keep contacting different schools until one of them is willing to help you out.

A lot of adults are repeating Irish as external students so as to get into primary teaching so it shouldn't be strange for a school to receive a request from an external student to sit the oral there.