MAKING AN OFFER
Education guru - Brian Mooney gives you his tips on accepting / declining your offers.
· How do I accept a place?
You will have a week to accept a place. Places can be accepted on-line or by post. If you are going to post it, make sure to requested a certificate of postage from the post office. They are printed on the inside back cover of the CAO handbook. If accepting on-line, students MUST print off a receipt of their acceptance before ending their on-line session with CAO.
· How do I apply for deferral?
It is the individual colleges and not the CAO who deal with requests for deferrals. If you wish to defer a place offered to you, then you must immediately write to the college setting out your reason for seeking such a deferment. Mark “deferred entry” clearly on the envelope. You must attach to the letter the appropriate part of the offer notice, i.e. that which shows the offer you wish to be deferred. The request must arrive in the college in question by Friday 26th August. The college will let you know its decision immediately. Most colleges offer deferrals when requested to do so by a student.
· Will I disqualify myself from other offers, if I accept / refuse any offer I may receive today?
No. You are entitled to be offered any place that may become available, higher up their order of preference on either of their two lists. Whether you have accepted a place in another course or not is irrelevant, you will be offered the place anyway. If you choose to accept the new offer, you will simply have any registration fees you paid to the first college, transferred to the second one.
· Can I be offered a place on a course I have not applied for, but now want?
You can do this only if vacancies are advertised on those course(s) on the CAO website, www.cao.ie. This will occur if the original list of qualified applicants to the CAO is exhausted, or if a college has offered a new course since the 1st July. Please check that you meet all the minimum entry requirements before you place any Vacant Place course on your existing list of courses choices.
· Do I have to pay a fee when returning my acceptance to CAO, if I am offered a place today?”
No payment is required when returning the acceptance of a place to the CAO. The college will send out any bills for tuition fees etc, separately. All enquiries about such fees should be directed to the Fees Office of the college offering the place – not to the CAO. Students will have to pay these registration charges, when they are registering in their new college.
· If I am upgraded in one or more subjects, how will that effect my CAO application?
The State Examinations Commission will notify CAO automatically in mid October, in the event of a successful appeal of any grade you receive this morning. Following that you will be contacted regarding any new entitlement to a course this upgrade may entitle you to.
In most cases, up-grades happen up to a month to six weeks after courses start. Many colleges may offer you the option to take up the place immediately, although due to the size of the existing class group, some courses cannot offer you a place this year.
If you want any new place offered but cannot get in this year you can accept the place as a deferred entry place for next year, and do something else for the remainder of this year. The most important point for deferred entry students to remember is that they have to apply to the CAO again by 1st Feb. 2012, placing the deferred course as the only course on your application form in 2012, if you wish to take up your deferred place.