CAO offers 2025: Students angry as some lose out on places due to \u2018cruel\u2019 random selectionOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\nInstead, the student was offered their second choice.<\/p>\n
\u201cKnowing that all these years of intense, hard work were shattered by an outdated, cruel and completely unfair place-allocation system was simply heartbreaking. Nobody\u2019s future should be decided by a lottery.\u201d<\/p>\n
The student, who wished to remain anonymous, said it was \u201cshocking\u201d to learn they had missed out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt did not seem real at first. Working extremely hard day and night to achieve something for six years straight, only for it to get taken away by a lottery using randomly generated numbers was absolutely devastating.\u201d<\/p>\n
The student subsequently discovered that some accepted to the course achieved six H1s in contrast to their eight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lottery system is sick, inhumane and disadvantageous for so many high-achieving students,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
Amid lowering grade inflation, they expected the use of random selection to be less common this year, though there was no change in the number of courses using it.<\/p>\n
They added this was on top of competing with Leaving Cert students from previous years who applied through the CAO in 2025, having benefited from higher grade inflation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like the Irish education system has failed me instead of fostering me. It took me in and spat me right back out again after all the hard work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although they were offered their second preference, they said one of the advantages of their first choice was being surrounded by \u201clike-minded, high-achieving individuals\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI could have received all H2s and still made the requirements for my second choice. What was all the hard work to achieve high results for?\u201d<\/p>\n
The chances of being offered the course on a subsequent round of offers were \u201cslim\u201d, they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no way of knowing how many candidates are awaiting a place in my course. We are all left to blindly hope that a place will appear.\u201d<\/p>\n
The student\u2019s parent said that, despite years of hard work, extracurricular projects, awards and recognitions, they have been \u201clet down\u201d by the system, describing it as \u201cdeeply unfair\u201d.<\/p>\n
They noted that their child was \u201cdoubly disadvantaged\u201d as they competed with others \u201cwho they might not have been in competition with if not for upward grade adjustment\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you get 95 or 100 per cent in a subject, you don\u2019t benefit from grade adjustment,\u201d they said. They added that \u201cthe system punished those who do best\u201d.<\/p>\n
Orla Sheils, Trinity\u2019s vice-provost, said on Wednesday there was \u201creally no fair way of solving the problem when students present on equal marks\u201d.<\/p>\n
While welcoming the reduction in Leaving Cert grade inflation, she said it was \u201cregrettable that the effects of this gradual unwinding will continue for a number of years to come\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Dublin student who achieved eight H1s and anticipated \u201cno problem\u201d in securing their first choice has said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,14331,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,12550,15,16,5,7,8,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-34212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-cao","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-leaving-certificate","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories","25":"tag-trinity-college-dublin-tcd"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34212","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=34212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}