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Honest question about TCD entry requirements

Junaid96

Hi, I was wondering if you guys could advise me on some TCD entry stuff.

As you probably know, we take A-levels in the UK, and I'll be taking 4-5 of them (including Further Maths).
A* = 150 points, A = 135, B = 120, C = 100, D = 75, E = 40, and you get 25 extra points for any Maths/Further Maths A-levels (so +25 for me for doing Further Maths). We only get 4 subjects counted towards entry, whereas you guys get 6.

I'm looking at Economics and German, and the minimum points seem to have been around 450-475 over the last few years. For you, you'd need around 6 B2's to meet that requirement, but for us in the UK, the A-level grades required seem WAY too low for such a reputable university.

I might as well apply to top unis in the UK, throw in a casual application to TCD for a few quid with no extra hassle, and if I totally screw up all my exams by getting low D's (I've got ~90% in my first year which counts for half of our A-level), this would give me BBBC overall, and would see me safely into TCD.. (is that right? If I got 480 points and the minimum was 475 that year, do I automatically get an offer?)

Now, in the UK, TCD is apparently as good as unis like Durham, Warwick and St. Andrew's, all of which would demand A*AA or maybe even A*AAB, which is 565 points. BBBC would not be good enough for any unis in the top 20, let alone Durham/Warwick.

My questions: How good is TCD really, is my reasoning above correct, and if so, how come TCD is so easy to get into if it's so good?

Thanks

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vamos!

Junaid96 wrote: »

Hi, I'm a Brit
Now that we've got that out of the way, I was wondering if you guys could advise me on some TCD entry stuff.

As you probably know, we take A-levels in the UK, and I'll be taking 4-5 of them (including Further Maths).
A* = 150 points, A = 135, B = 120, C = 100, D = 75, E = 40, and you get 25 extra points for any Maths/Further Maths A-levels (so +25 for me for doing Further Maths). We only get 4 subjects counted towards entry, you guys get 6.

I'm looking at Economics and German, and the minimum points seem to have been around 450-475 over the last few years. To be frank, this seems piss easy.

I might as well apply to Cambridge in the UK, throw in a casual application to TCD for a few quid with no extra hassle, and if I totally screw up all my exams by getting low D's (I've got ~85% in my first year which counts for half of our A-level), this would give me BBBC overall, and would see me safely into TCD.. (is that right? If I got 480 points and the minimum was 475 that year, do I automatically get an offer?)

Now, in the UK, TCD is apparently as good as unis like Durham, Warwick and St. Andrew's, all of which would demand A*AA or maybe even A*AAB, which is 565 points. If someone got BBBC here in the UK, those would be abysmal grades in the eyes of most unis in the top 30 list, let alone Durham/Warwick/unis which TCD is supposedly comparable to, and they would end up at some third-rate uni in the middle of nowhere.

My questions: How good is TCD really, is my reasoning above correct, and if so, how come TCD is so easy to get into if it's so good?! How can grades which would send me hurtling down the uni ranking list in the UK get me into the top Irish university?!

Thanks, and I hope I haven't caused any offence - there's not much information about Irish unis available to us here so I don't know much about the system.

TCD German is good. I have never worked in the British system but can tell you that our points system is based on supply and demand. Our students generally study 7 subjects to Leaving Cert level. 6 is minimum and Irish, English and Maths are compulsory for all. We also don't have coursework and 100% of quite a few subjects is decided by 2 fairly intensive weeks of exams in June and the pressure is not spread over a number of years. It could be easy to get into from an A Level perspective, but 480 points is a decent enough Leaving Cert here.

Junaid96

vamos! wrote: »

TCD German is good. I have never worked in the British system but can tell you that our points system is based on supply and demand. Our students generally study 7 subjects to Leaving Cert level. 6 is minimum and Irish, English and Maths are compulsory for all. We also don't have coursework and 100% of quite a few subjects is decided by 2 fairly intensive weeks of exams in June and the pressure is not spread over a number of years. It could be easy to get into from an A Level perspective, but 480 points is a decent enough Leaving Cert here.

Is the quality of UK students in Dublin quite poor? Trust me, BBBC is awful (compared to what students at Durham/Warwick will have).

nothing

The system here in Ireland is not based on merit, as such. The points for a course are the actual points of the last person to be accepted into the course. Say there were 10 places and the points for that year were 400. Basically, of all the people who applied are ranked in order of their points, and accepted on that basis. The first 9 people on the course could have anywhere from 400 to 600+ points, but the 10th person had 400.

The points here do not indicate whether or not you're capable of doing the course, nor the level or quality of the course, which is why some courses have other requirements along with the points. It's simply about demand here.

Junaid96

nothing wrote: »

The system here in Ireland is not based on merit, as such. The points for a course are the actual points of the last person to be accepted into the course. Say there were 10 places and the points for that year were 400. Basically, of all the people who applied are ranked in order of their points, and accepted on that basis. The first 9 people on the course could have anywhere from 400 to 600+ points, but the 10th person had 400.

The points here do not indicate whether or not you're capable of doing the course, nor the level or quality of the course, which is why some courses have other requirements along with the points. It's simply about demand here.

That's so weird

So going to TCD is in no way an indication of you being clever/hard-working? Hmm. Surely they have a low 1st/2:1 rate then if they don't care who they take on?

nothing

Junaid96 wrote: »

That's so weird So going to TCD is in no way an indication of you being clever/hard-working? Hmm. Surely they have a low 1st/2:1 rate then if they don't care who they take on?

It's the same system for all of our third level courses, we apply for up to 10 university courses, and we rank them in the order which we would like them. So I could have, for example, a course in TCD in my number 1 spot, a course in UCD in my number 2 spot and a course in NUIM in my number 3 spot. Then if I have high enough points, I get offered my 1st choice, or my 2nd or my 3rd.

TCD courses are in high demand, as it is seen as having the best courses historically, and so the students who get into the courses in TCD would have higher points than the same course in another university here. Take a course like medicine; it usually has points of 600 or 590, but this is more to do with the high demand and small number of places, than the fact that it is a difficult course. (of course the difficulty will have some impact in that it will impact on the type of student who applies!)

[Deleted User]

Junaid96 wrote: »

That's so weird So going to TCD is in no way an indication of you being clever/hard-working? Hmm. Surely they have a low 1st/2:1 rate then if they don't care who they take on?

Well not really, the prestigious British universities are only able to pick and choose their students because they have high demand. Similarly, because Trinity has high demand, it's students are usually those with high points. So in both cases there's high demand and high points.

In addition, I only got 495 points in the leaving cert, was still well above the required points for my course, and was a terrible secondary school student, yet I just received a 1st in my third year exams, as did my two best friends in my course, so while they weren't too picky about the points on letting people in, Trinity is clearly doing something right and producing well educated people. Hopefully I'll be able to repeat my performance for next year!

Edit: Also, don't be concerned about your college being an indication of you being clever/hard-working. It's your degree result that will show that.

Denerick

Junaid96 wrote: »

That's so weird So going to TCD is in no way an indication of you being clever/hard-working? Hmm. Surely they have a low 1st/2:1 rate then if they don't care who they take on?

You reach a stage in your life where you realise that your Leaving cert. is essentially useless once you scrape together enough points to do the course you want to do. Nothing about being clever/hard working.

I think its a great system. Oxford and Cambridge are great colleges but shamelessly elitist, there is nothing more meritocratic than a simple bureaucratic pre-requirement list.

I would rank TCD alongside the top tier of British uni's. Obviously behind Oxbridge but definitely up there with the likes of LSE/Edinburgh etc.

Junaid96

Denerick wrote: »

You reach a stage in your life where you realise that your Leaving cert. is essentially useless once you scrape together enough points to do the course you want to do. Nothing about being clever/hard working.

I think its a great system. Oxford and Cambridge are great colleges but shamelessly elitist, there is nothing more meritocratic than a simple bureaucratic pre-requirement list.

I would rank TCD alongside the top tier of British uni's. Obviously behind Oxbridge but definitely up there with the likes of LSE/Edinburgh etc.

true-or-false wrote: »

Well not really, the prestigious British universities are only able to pick and choose their students because they have high demand. Similarly, because Trinity has high demand, it's students are usually those with high points. So in both cases there's high demand and high points.

In addition, I only got 495 points in the leaving cert, was still well above the required points for my course, and was a terrible secondary school student, yet I just received a 1st in my third year exams, as did my two best friends in my course, so while they weren't too picky about the points on letting people in, Trinity is clearly doing something right and producing well educated people. Hopefully I'll be able to repeat my performance for next year!

Edit: Also, don't be concerned about your college being an indication of you being clever/hard-working. It's your degree result that will show that.

nothing wrote: »

It's the same system for all of our third level courses, we apply for up to 10 university courses, and we rank them in the order which we would like them. So I could have, for example, a course in TCD in my number 1 spot, a course in UCD in my number 2 spot and a course in NUIM in my number 3 spot. Then if I have high enough points, I get offered my 1st choice, or my 2nd or my 3rd.

TCD courses are in high demand, as it is seen as having the best courses historically, and so the students who get into the courses in TCD would have higher points than the same course in another university here. Take a course like medicine; it usually has points of 600 or 590, but this is more to do with the high demand and small number of places, than the fact that it is a difficult course. (of course the difficulty will have some impact in that it will impact on the type of student who applies!)

I see. Thanks for the replies

I'll be applying then

It seems like it'll be a backup as I should be getting 550-595 points.

If I got offers from, say, Warwick, Durham, LSE, UCL then which would be worth turning down for Dublin?

PurpleFistMixer

Junaid96 wrote: »

If I got offers from, say, Warwick, Durham, LSE, UCL then which would be worth turning down for Dublin?

You should put some research into this yourself - see what the universities are like in general (clubs, societies, location, cost, etc.), compare the courses you'd be doing (economics and german wouldn't be identical everywhere), that sort of thing. Re: reputation, I haven't a clue about these for your field, but there's probably not much of a difference them for undergrad, and I wouldn't make that the deciding factor in where to go. If you go to a big-name university and hate it and do badly, you're much worse off than if you went somewhere less well-known, loved it and did well, you know?

Nermal

Basically, this results translation ratio was set when A-levels required something other than writing your name with a crayon to get an A. The Leaving has been dumbed down as well, but not nearly so much.

By the way I would turn down Warwick and Durham for Trinity, but not the LSE or UCL.

languagenerd

As the others have said, the points system is the same for TCD as every other college in Ireland. It's all run through the CAO (Central Applications Office - so you don't apply to TCD itself). When results come out, they rank everyone in order of their points and the top students who applied for each course will get the places (so if a course has 20 places, the top 20 students get in, if it has 50, the top 50 get in, etc.). The points published in the newspapers and on the various college websites are the points of the last person to get in. So while the points for German were 475 in whatever year you were looking at, most of the students in the class will have got more than 475.

Also, bear in mind that 2012 is the first year that extra points have been awarded for Maths (it's never happened before, except for some course in the University of Limerick, I think). This means that the 475 that you've been told is BEFORE Maths points were added, so it could well rise by 25 this year (this is especially likely in TCD because it's traditionally had higher demand than other Irish universities and a lot of honours students end up there). Also, while points often stay around the same level, there's no guarantee that they will be. In 2009 for example, a lot of the Science courses rose by 50-80 points because of demand. It's not frequent, but it happens.

As well as points, TCD has a few matriculation requirements. See here: http://www.tcd.ie/Admissions/undergraduate/requirements/matriculation/gcse/. Also because you're looking to do German, so you'll need at least a C1 in German (I do French and Spanish, same thing). These are important, because even if you got the right points, you can't be offered a place without these requirements too.

CIARAN_BOYLE

Junaid96 wrote: »

Hi, I was wondering if you guys could advise me on some TCD entry stuff.

As you probably know, we take A-levels in the UK, and I'll be taking 4-5 of them (including Further Maths).
A* = 150 points, A = 135, B = 120, C = 100, D = 75, E = 40, and you get 25 extra points for any Maths/Further Maths A-levels (so +25 for me for doing Further Maths). We only get 4 subjects counted towards entry, whereas you guys get 6.

Now, in the UK, TCD is apparently as good as unis like Durham, Warwick and St. Andrew's, all of which would demand A*AA or maybe even A*AAB, which is 565 points. BBBC would not be good enough for any unis in the top 20, let alone Durham/Warwick.

My questions: How good is TCD really, is my reasoning above correct, and if so, how come TCD is so easy to get into if it's so good?

Thanks

Your A levels are over valued imo because your A levels are easier than they were when the points conversion came in ago and the points conversion haven't changed.

TCD is a top tier University, as to whether you should turn down your UK universities thats up to you and probably depending on your personal requirements.

andrew

If you care particularly about the economics department you'll be studying in, go to a British university. AFAIK the ones you mentioned are better in that respect.

JJ.

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Your A levels are over valued imo because your A levels are easier than they were when the points conversion came in ago and the points conversion haven't changed.

TCD is a top tier University, as to whether you should turn down your UK universities thats up to you and probably depending on your personal requirements.

I agree that A Levels are perhaps over valued in the CAO points system. I took the IB, and according to CAO's conversion (Score / 45 x 600) a grade 7 in IB is worth 93 CAO points. 7's are notoriously hard to achieve, much harder than A*'s at A Level, especially in the more subjective humanaties. But according to CAO they're equivalent to a C at A Level? What's up with that?

Then again, over in the UK, UCAS massively over rated IB scores. Not that Uni's really use UCAS points, but a fairly average score of 31 is something like the equivalent of 4 A's at A Level according to UCAS points.

I guess it just must be hard for them to squeeze such vastly different qualification marks into a one size fits all pigeon hole that makes it easy for Uni's to make offers.

DeDoc

The honest answer is that A-levels are grossly overvalued in the TCD entrance system.

There is a (too-) simple formula used - 6 subjects count for CAO and most A-level students take 4, so scale the A-level by 150%.

Just for example - some 23% of students taking A-level English got an A or A* grade
The figure for Ireland is 10%.

For Maths, the figures are: 45% versus 13%

PurpleFistMixer

The university does not set the points.

Sweet Caroline

Junaid96 wrote: »

Hi, I was wondering if you guys could advise me on some TCD entry stuff.

As you probably know, we take A-levels in the UK, and I'll be taking 4-5 of them (including Further Maths).
A* = 150 points, A = 135, B = 120, C = 100, D = 75, E = 40, and you get 25 extra points for any Maths/Further Maths A-levels (so +25 for me for doing Further Maths). We only get 4 subjects counted towards entry, whereas you guys get 6.

I'm looking at Economics and German, and the minimum points seem to have been around 450-475 over the last few years. For you, you'd need around 6 B2's to meet that requirement, but for us in the UK, the A-level grades required seem WAY too low for such a reputable university.

I might as well apply to top unis in the UK, throw in a casual application to TCD for a few quid with no extra hassle, and if I totally screw up all my exams by getting low D's (I've got ~90% in my first year which counts for half of our A-level), this would give me BBBC overall, and would see me safely into TCD.. (is that right? If I got 480 points and the minimum was 475 that year, do I automatically get an offer?)

Now, in the UK, TCD is apparently as good as unis like Durham, Warwick and St. Andrew's, all of which would demand A*AA or maybe even A*AAB, which is 565 points. BBBC would not be good enough for any unis in the top 20, let alone Durham/Warwick.

My questions: How good is TCD really, is my reasoning above correct, and if so, how come TCD is so easy to get into if it's so good?

Thanks

Just saying, I received an offers from Durham and Kings College London and am planning on rejecting them to go to TCD (hoping to study Maths and Music). I am predicted/expecting all A*s and As at A-level (Chemistry, Biology, Maths, Music).

Doing four A levels definitely gives an advantage because most A-level students only do three and one AS, meaning that the top points are automatically limited to about 500. The Leaving Cert is awfully difficult to get high scores in because of the insane amount of work and memorising required, as opposed to modules, so it does appear that A-level students (well, the ones that do four) get an easy ride.

But honestly, it does look like an amazing uni, with a fascinating history, and all the lecturers I've talked to, from various departments, have been so helpful and willing to explain things. And it's free! (well, for Norn Iron students it is...)

Lisandro

Sweet Caroline wrote: »

You know, there was a welfare officer candidate a couple of years back called Sweet Caroline (not literally, but it was her campaign pitch). For a second, I thought you were her, until I saw you were an A-level student planning to do music next year!

Kwekubo

PurpleFistMixer wrote: »

The university does not set the points.

That's correct, but only since 2010 have all third-level institutions in the Republic used the same points system for A-levels, so it's perhaps unsurprising that there is still some confusion. Trinity was the first university to adopt the now-universal 150 points = A* system back in 2005. Before this, Trinity equated an A* to 190 points, and the best three subjects were counted (so the maximum score was 570).

languagenerd

Kwekubo wrote: »

That's correct, but only since 2010 have all third-level institutions in the Republic used the same points system for A-levels, so it's perhaps unsurprising that there is still some confusion. Trinity was the first university to adopt the now-universal 150 points = A* system back in 2005. Before this, Trinity equated an A* to 190 points, and the best three subjects were counted (so the maximum score was 570).

I think PurpleFistMixer's post was in response to another post which has now been deleted, not the OP...

That's interesting though, about the old system - doesn't seem fair to A-level students!

Tears in Rain

Lisandro wrote: »

You know, there was a welfare officer candidate a couple of years back called Sweet Caroline (not literally, but it was her campaign pitch). For a second, I thought you were her, until I saw you were an A-level student planning to do music next year!

You're not the only one

Sweet Caroline

Kwekubo wrote: »

That's correct, but only since 2010 have all third-level institutions in the Republic used the same points system for A-levels, so it's perhaps unsurprising that there is still some confusion. Trinity was the first university to adopt the now-universal 150 points = A* system back in 2005. Before this, Trinity equated an A* to 190 points, and the best three subjects were counted (so the maximum score was 570).

The UK didn't have A*s till about 2010...
It used to be that an A would get 150 points, and four As isn't ridiculous if you go to my school, so a bunch if people were getting 4 As thus 600 points which didn't really seem fair to Irish students, but now it seems a bit more fair. 4A*s is almost impossible to get ( much like 600 points)

Kwekubo

languagenerd wrote: »

I think PurpleFistMixer's post was in response to another post which has now been deleted, not the OP...

Ah, my bad.

Sweet Caroline wrote: »

The UK didn't have A*s till about 2010...

Sorry, that was a typo on my part - an A grade (not A*) was formerly equivalent to 190 points (linky).

Looking at it now, it's remarkable how much the goalposts have shifted for A-level students over quite a short period of time.