CAO 2024: Up to 60% of students to receive their first offer but random selection for some courses

What do I do when I get a college offer?
Brian Mooney has this advice for students who receive a college offer this afternoon.
As he points out, if an applicant receives an offer of their first choice,it is the only offer from that list they will receive.
If they receive an offer of a lower preference they may, depending on the number of acceptances received by colleges, receive an offer of a higher course choice at any stage up to as late as mid-October.
However, this applies to a very small volume of courses.
CAO 2024: Waiting on an offer today? Here’s how to respond to it – The Irish Times
How much is college accommodation this year?
It’s the first dilemma facing CAO applicants after they receive their college offer – can I find a place to live?
Katie Mellett has compiled a very useful guide to the cost of accommodation across Irish universities.
It’s no surprised to see that rental costs for most part are only going one way; that’s if you can find a place.
The gong for the most expensive accommodation goes to UCD at Roebuck Castle, where a catered, en suite apartment costs a whopping €12,063.55 for the 2024/25 academic year.
CAO points 2024: the good news and the bad news
It’s a twitchy time for students — and parents. You’ve got your grades, but do you have your college place?
We won’t officially find out until 2pm, but we have some significant indicators.
First, the good news: it is expected that close to 60 per cent of CAO applicants will secure their first choice college place this year, while up to 85 per cent are likely to secure one of their top-three places.
The not-so-good news: random selection will be used to select candidates on some prestigious courses such as medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, business, management, engineering and others, according to higher education sources.
We’ll have all of the latest updates, news, and analysis as the offers go out live here.
You can read more on what we know so far in this news story here.