{"id":23425,"date":"2025-08-26T02:48:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T02:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/23425\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T02:48:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T02:48:14","slug":"i-fell-11-points-short-of-the-course-i-wanted-and-went-down-the-plc-route-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/23425\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I fell 11 points short of the course I wanted and went down the PLC route\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two years ago, when she opened her Leaving Cert <\/a>results, Amy Moore <\/a>(20) learned she had narrowly missed out on her first-choice course \u2013 psychology in National College of Ireland <\/a>(NCI).<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of always knew I wasn\u2019t going to get the points in the Leaving Cert because [they] were really high. So, I began looking at Post Leaving Cert (PLC) courses to do that were in psychology. I found one in Col\u00e1iste Dh\u00falaigh in Coolock [Dublin]. <\/p>\n

\u201cI applied for that before my Leaving Cert points came out and I kind of knew that I wasn\u2019t going to get the course that I really wanted to. I still had hopes but when I opened my results, I didn\u2019t get the points so at least I knew I had the second option of the PLC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amy fell 11 points short of the course and admits it was disheartening on the day. Still, she entered the course in a college 10 minutes away from home. Accessibility is a big benefit of this route, with Post Leaving Cert courses available in more than 200 institutions countrywide. <\/p>\n

\u201cI started the PLC in September, the same as every other college student,\u201d she says. \u201cThe PLC that I did basically gave me college life. It had college activities and freshers\u2019 events, so it felt like I was in college, and I didn\u2019t feel like I was far behind my friends when I was doing it. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy course was really big at the start. I think there were 60 people. As time went on, people started to drop out because they realised they didn\u2019t like the course. That\u2019s another good thing about doing a PLC. You can see if you actually want to do the subjects that you\u2019re interested in.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Moore, the course offered assurance that psychology was the right path. She secured a level five on the National Framework of Qualifications and filled out a new list of Central Applications Office (CAO) preferences. Places are kept aside for PLC applicants on a wide variety of courses in the State, provided they meet the Quality and Qualifications Ireland requirements.<\/p>\n

Moore has just learned that she again missed out on the course in NCI after CAO round zero offers were extended. However, she has accepted a place in higher education. \u201cI\u2019m going to Maynooth to do an arts degree, and I\u2019ll be pursuing psychology, and then I\u2019ll be able to do my master\u2019s in psychology as well,\u201d she says. \u201cNot a lot of places have psychology as an arts degree, so Maynooth is really well structured to have that as part of theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though she could be disappointed about NCI, she is happy to do a PLC. Completing a placement was particularly informative, as it gave her a better understanding of the type of work she\u2019d like to do in psychology down the line. That opportunity isn\u2019t available for level eight students until they are further into their studies. <\/p>\n

\u201c[The PLC] helped me understand that I truly want to do psychology. And, hopefully, it will help me when I start my first year and make it easier to get into a routine of how it works,\u201d says Moore. \u201cIt also helped me learn how college works by the independence it gives you and how drastically different it is from secondary school.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two years ago, when she opened her Leaving Cert results, Amy Moore (20) learned she had narrowly missed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,19823,12552,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,12550,15,16,5,12551,19822,1420,12548,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-23425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-c-c","11":"tag-classroom-to-college","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-leaving-certificate","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-second-level","25":"tag-smart-choices","26":"tag-students","27":"tag-third-level","28":"tag-top-stories","29":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}