Leaving Cert grades up average 7.5% this year

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0823/1466294-leaving-certificate-results/

I kind of get the rationale of not wanting to disadvantage current secondary schools students against those who had an easier grading routine during Covid.

Average increase of 7.5% for this year's cohort is interesting.

It's said that this is to help them obtain College places which is fine. That's not where the problem is coming down the tracks though.

Those students who get in to a course they ordinarily might not have will end up dropping out or failing and those students that go in to the jobs market and are kind of fooled in to thinking they are at a certain level that they aren't are going to have a tough time re-adjusting their own ambitions that have been falsely embellished.

Maybe for some students it may be a positive. There are students who did not do well in school but blossom afterward, they get a better chance. No idea of the proportion.

L1011

The increase is flat on last year - but every year they keep baking in the previous jump, the harder it gets to actually bring it back down to 2019 levels.

Main issue with cutting it is that if you don't get a course this year, just wait til next year and the average grade might be 7.5% lower than this year (if they finally decide to stop this) and you'll get in ahead of everyone else. But they can't keep this up forever.

NI has unwound their equivalent increases over the last three years and is back to baseline now.

ledwithhedwith

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365716/leaving-cert-grades-up-average-7-5-this-year

course difficulty isn’t done on points though it’s done on demand/space.

Jim_Hodge

They're not up 7.5%. They're boosted by 7.5% and in line with last year. Read the piece you linked to, and not just the headline!

Montage of Feck

Getting to third level is now at risk of becoming a lottery rather than merit based, well for popular courses anyway.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122534210#Comment_122534210

Not really. If everybody's score is boosted by 7.5% the relative ranking of students is unchanged. It's the students with the highest grades who get the available places, and the same students will still have the highest grades.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122534242#Comment_122534242

Except for those who were already at the top and can't be boosted any further.

Something that was never a concern of mine admittedly, but does impact some people.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122534250#Comment_122534250

if does affect some courses as it turns them into lotteries for places instead of clear winners achieving them

MeisterG

The whole thing should be done by percentiles across the board - gets around inflation and can make international/year-on-year comparison much easier

KaneToad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365716/leaving-cert-grades-up-average-7-5-this-year

A high points course is no more "difficult" than a low points course - it's purely based on supply & demand.

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122534348#Comment_122534348

Points are based on supply and demand. However, at universities there will be distribution of grades within these courses also. Given that all the students in a 600+ course are extremely able, they would tend to pick up the pace to achieve that distribution.

Quantum Erasure

I thought they were going to actively stop this grade inflation, I thought it happened last year...

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365716/leaving-cert-grades-up-average-7-5-this-year

Exactly, the leaving cert grade fiasco is just a sad reflection of the economy. Hand out lots to one group of people and you screw it up for everyone.

Leaving cert was never about how well you perform, but how well you perform relative to everyone else. This nonsense figure they give of 7.5% just means that it will 7.5% be harder to get into your course this year than it was last year. Wait til you see, they will just increase the college point requirement accordingly, or let the college's take everyone's money and let them drop out after a year as you say.

Although, with an election this year, Norma Foley won't want to be rattling any cages.

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122534714#Comment_122534714

It won't be harder to get in, the same set of people will be competing for the same set of places, the only question is the calculation of points. However, is the "uplift" this year not designed to be related to the uplift last year. Points will not go up, the issue is whether they come down.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122534738#Comment_122534738

How about citizens of NI or UK who want to apply through our CAO system?

Or RofI students applying for places in the UK and elsewhere?

Former at disadvantage, latter with potential advantage.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122534613#Comment_122534613

General Election coming soon. They'll might do it next year.

They should at least begin to taper it off anyway.

Geuze

Grade inflation in the LC is very bad:

https://x.com/seamuscoffey/status/1435249385441579013

Geuze

The share getting 400+ points:

Geuze

Here is the same data including 2021:

Trampas

What’s the actual reason behind leaving cert points?

If colleges did entrance exams for courses we wouldn’t need points. Or let colleges decide what to do with your results. Maybe they could load certain subjects over others based on the course.

The current set up is just a one size fits all and does the work for the college.

Nearly 30 years since I did mine so doesn’t effect me in anyway anymore

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122537675#Comment_122537675

This is sort of what I'm going back to. I wouldn't have gotten very high leaving points and really struggled with it tbh. So I scraped into the course I wanted, did great educationally after that though cause I did courses that suited me.

Nearly fifteen years on and my leaving cert results have no relevance. I hire people and graduates tend to get questions related to college material and beyond even that. It's tech so I'd aim to hire based on actual interest in the area. I'm sure they include leaving cert results in lots of the CVs but it doesn't really hold a whole lot of relevance.

Obviously there are certain courses that need very specific subjects and ability at them. But plenty just need some interview process and application system. Equally there's a factor that loads of teens have no idea where their interests lie. So I think there's a lot of logic in the liberal arts flow for those scenarios too.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122534183#Comment_122534183

The right thing to do is to normalise previous years to the 2019 baseline.

riddles

would it be an expectation that course points could drop 10% in next years CAO round - a course that was 390 in 2019 could be 440 now as a result of Covid rankings.

MisterAnarchy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122538088#Comment_122538088

No the right thing is to go back to 1995 levels before all this dumbing down nonsense began.

The whole thing as well as college grade inflation is an utter farce.

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122536015#Comment_122536015

I'm not justifying the boosting of grades. My point was that this is the same as last year so points will not go up because of this, they are already up.

If A levels have not had such a boost, then the A level equivalence can be adjusted to reflect this.

Jim2007

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122534210#Comment_122534210

Nope, not at all. Stats don't work that way…

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122538472#Comment_122538472

No, that is exactly how courses work when they hit 625 points - random selection. Also used for the final places if there are multiple applicants on the same points.

You are allocated a number (in the background, you don't get to know it) when you sign up for CAO that is used to decide placing in random selection.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122538451#Comment_122538451

I guess A Level equivalence can be adjusted but will they? Not my problem anyway but won't be too surprised to hear some complaints when the offers come out.

road_high

this is what happens when you endless political interference in a system. Same going on the consumer/financial side of our lives

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122539417#Comment_122539417

…maybe we should free market its ass, definitely make it more democractic and fair!

road_high

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122538188#Comment_122538188

absolutely- the LC was a “hard” exam then and it could be (very) brutal. But it reflected real life and the hard work and sacrifices needed to get ahead.
Now the focus is all about “fairness” etc. Which is an illusion- we can only grow and prosper from overcoming difficult situations and challenges

road_high

Of course that’s how it should be- everyone on their own merits but all the same opportunity without the dumbing down and special treatment for everything. Covid exams were the biggest farce in history

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122538188#Comment_122538188

True ...but that wouldn't fly nowadays

Can you imagine the whinging, complaining and gnashing of teeth from the mammys and daddy's and the mental stress on the students and the even greater cries of LC not even relevant etc etc if they actually had to apply themselves to get average grades...

Much better to give most participants rubber medals and tell them all they are great altogether....less resistance....a sizeable proportion of people don't want things to be difficult...they don't subscribe to worthwhile things requiring any great effort, they want things and they want it now and they get upset if it doesn't work out that way and blame anyone or anything before taking a look at themselves if they don't get it.....

I want it, I want it now, it should be easy and require almost no input from me and if I don't get it then that must be everyone else's fault in some way....

It's ironic they often look up to successful people but it never occurs to them that the majority of those people sacrificed and worked hard to get where they are...they want the glory without what it requires ...its instant gratification is what's required...and the system/politicians flunkies of all sorts are reactive by nature and tend to give in to a degree to those that whip up the most noise....media is happy to fill the airwaves with a percentage of horseshit too

The process of realising you are mostly responsible for yourself happens later and later now in life....there are more infantilised man and women children wandering around now than there ever were.

Kurooi

60,800 students, of which apparently 1.6% received 625 points , 973 students?

You betcha there will be courses in Trinity where kids getting top marks are tossed on a lottery. If not now then soon. Or a 5 point mistake in an unrelated subject cost them the spot because 5% of their peers or 1 in 20 got 600+

This many hitting the ceiling brings it away from being a merit based system. It won't be long before universities call bullshit and start to do additional testing because even if the kids just got that smart, no right thinking person will think the kids future should be decided over a coin toss.