Universities to use lottery for some high points courses

Irish universities look set to offer a number of high points courses on random selection – or a lottery – due to the high volume of top grades linked to this year’s Leaving Cert (Leaving Certificate Examination) results, writes Carl O’Brien for The Irish Times.

The bunching of students on high grades has made it difficult to differentiate between candidates for some prestigious courses such as medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, business, management, engineering and others, according to higher education sources.

This year’s Leaving Cert results were artificially inflated to match results of recent years in order to ensure students are not placed a disadvantage when competing for college places against students from previous years. Despite these challenges, it is expected that close to 60% of CAO (Central Applications Office) applicants will secure their first choice college place this year, while up to 85% are likely to secure one of their top three places.
Full report on The Irish Times site