Should I change my course preference based on predicted points?

No, no, never. You have absolutely nothing to lose by leaving it as your first choice. If you don't have enough points for it but do for your second choice, the CAO for the first round will treat it as your first choice and offer you it, regardless of what's above it. I know you say you're fairly confident but you honestly never know, think of subjects like English where grades can fluctuate so much depending on your examiner.

Looking purely at the merits of the decision, removing it would have absolutely no positive impact on your life, and could quite possibly have a negative one. Don't do it! :P

Tet2015 wrote: »

But let's say for instance that my second choice is Maynooth and there are only 123 places left and 200 people choose Maynooth as their 1st choice and I miss my first choice at UCD. So now I'm at my second choice Maynooth, and have more points than required for their course, will I get as much chance of entry as the 200 students who set Maynooth as their 1st choice? ( let's say 120 out of 200 got more than required points and the rest got exactly the amount of required points)

When you apply for the CAO you are put onto the list for every course that you apply for. So is everyone else.

When the results are released they are sent to the CAO. They enter your results and listed are compiled with everyone ranked by points for every course , you are on the list for every course you have applied for. At this point anyone who didn't meet the entry requirements would be removed, e.g. failed maths, didn't get a C3 in french or whatever.

So lets day you apply for Computer Science in Trinity first, Computer Science in Maynooth second and Computer Science in UCC third.

There are 100 places in each course. Well if you are in position no 97 on the Trinity list, no 65 in Maynooth and No 1 in UCC, you are eligible for all three courses. They look to see which of those was your highest preference, they see that it is Trinity, so they offer you that place and they remove you from the Maynooth and UCC lists. Everyone on each of those lists moves up a spot and the person who was no 101 for each of Maynooth and UCC now makes it into the eligible places.

This is why you HAVE to put your courses in order of preference not points. Person no. 100 on the list has the lowest points for the course and that is the no. of points published by the CAO. That is why in the second round you see points drop sometimes because students refuse the places they have been offered so they move to the next person on the list.


EDIT: I think the CAO is an amazing system considering that about 60,000 people sit the Leaving Cert. Students who have previously sat the Leaving Cert can apply for the CAO at any time. Students who have repeated the LC may have multiple sets of LC results to apply with. Mature students can apply. FETAC students can apply. A-level students and students from other countries can apply. Students can pick up to 20 courses, between their Level 8 and Level 6/7 list. That's a whole lot of students on a whole lot of lists. The LC results are published on a Wednesday and students receive their CAO offers on a Monday, and it works.

Tet2015 wrote: »

Since there are only 105 spaces open for the course, reckon it would be a good idea for me to just change my preference order?

No.

Never take off the course you want, or move it down the list because you "won't get the points".

Yoo don't know what points you will get; you don't know what the points will be.

Just make sure sure your no. 2, no. 3, etc., choices are in the right order, that's all.

Tet2015 wrote: »

So now I'm at my second choice Maynooth, and have more points than required for their course, will I get as much chance of entry as the 200 students who set Maynooth as their 1st choice?

Where does this one come from every year? :pac:

Whether you have a course at No. 1 or No. 10 is totally irrelevant, the only things which are relevant are 1) do you have the course requirements; and 2) do you have the points?

EoghanIRL wrote: »

The cao might be good but I am pretty sure that we broke boards.ie when pics of the newspaper were posted here last year.

Meh, they get posted every year, boards hiccups, pulls up its socks and gets on with the job! :pac:

NEVER change based on points.

You'd be surprised how many people that bites in the *ss every year!