Record number applying for CAO - good or bad?

[staunch ff]

With so many young people sacrificing further education for low paying jobs its great to see a reverse that will be of long term benefit to the country

[davehiggz]

This is great news for the Leaving Cert class of 2011. High points will push next year's 6th years (me) to work harder and ultimately better ourselves. The points will be high but they'll drop as less people apply in 2011, we hope. The fear within this years 6th years is also pushing them to work harder however sadly they will be stuck with high points and many will miss out.

[toughbutfair]

. I'm of the opinion that people do their best in any given endeavour or situation,

Post 42 suggests you are wrong. The increased competition is causing the guy actually doing his leaving cert to work harder.

Duh!

[constitutionus]

the points required for a course are nothing to do with the level of difficulty of the coursework. it is all a supply and demand driven thing. a persons aptitude for a career is not taken into account at all in most cases I would personally prefer to have for example a nurse who has an ability to make a patient feel less stressed and worried by their manner than some overachiever who happened to be top of their class with a distant and cold manner. it does not require super intelligence for many of the courses that have high points. it's just that they are popular. the points system is a flawed one imo. I also don't see your point re entitlement all are entitled to an education - not necessarily a free one, but the points race has nothing to do with the grants system.

this will actually be the real story in this whole issue.

for the last decade or so the courses with the highest points were all PS jobs.

medicine.

nursing.

teaching.

and one with a high level of state patronage.

law.

with the gov actually tackling things in the PS now it'' be intereting to see if its had any effect in swinging students back in the direction of private sector jobs.

in my day (early 90s) the big courses were computer science, engineering, opthalmic optics , and science.

with the media bigging up pharma and IT again i reckon were gonna see a big uptake in courses that lead into them as its pretty obvious the gov wont be hiring anymore teachers, nurses, doctors et al for the foreseeable furture.

the CAO figures should make interesting reading.

[uriah]

I am always amused by posters who feel the need to let us know (who asked?) that they are high achievers A1 in honours maths, honours degrees, never sullied by grinds, etc., etc. Sometimes the attempt to portray themselves as high achievers is a little more subtle - suggestions that things have been 'dumbed down' since they were in school/college etc.

Chances are it's complete fiction and I suspect that some of these posters, judging by their posts on a number of topics, would have difficulty passing any exam. We have no way of knowing, of course, not that it matters.

It is all rather silly, but sad at the same time.

[Drico]

This is great news for the Leaving Cert class of 2011. High points will push next year's 6th years (me) to work harder and ultimately better ourselves. The points will be high but they'll drop as less people apply in 2011, we hope. The fear within this years 6th years is also pushing them to work harder however sadly they will be stuck with high points and many will miss out.

Not quite so good for those sitting the Leaving Cert in 2010 who should be studying rather than spending time on Politics.ie

I was told by my mother at dinner that there are going to be 2 people applying for every college place. Will make places on popular courses very hard to get...

Would like to say also that the CAO system is by far the fairest way of allocating university course places. I recently made a UCAS application and the weight given to totally subjective aspects of your application like your personal statement or, in some cases, your interview is nowhere near as fair as our system where objective results are all that matter. If you do well enough you get the place, you do not need to wait to see what a proffessor thinks of you personally. It has its flaws but any other system is less fair.

[eoghanacht]

Post 42 suggests you are wrong. The increased competition is causing the guy actually doing his leaving cert to work harder.

Duh!

So one poster proves you right...........eh, OK.

but lets say that the majority of people doing their leaving cert are already working to their limit, what genius idea do you have for them?

[toughbutfair]

So one poster proves you right...........eh, OK.

but lets say that the majority of people doing their leaving cert are already working to their limit, what genius idea do you have for them?

the people doing their best should just continue as they are, no point in worrying over stuff you can't control. There are always people smarter, faster, stronger, better looking etc, that's life - don't sweat it. It isn't the end of the world.

[hopi watcher]

So somebody on straight Cs should be able to go to medical school - brilliant! Lets just lower the bar for everything so the less able can get what they want. Way to dumb down a society. Your socialist views mean you side with the less able on everything which pulls us all down.

Can you not read??? Where is that posted. I stated that grading is about assessing capacity, as it is known, to absorb complex information. It is nuts to deny anyone a university education who wants it. Their abilities should match the complexity of the course. In your world, where people don't come up to the mark, they are dumped. What a sad place you inhabit.

[Elijah-Berkovitz]

facking mature students.