10 odd facts for college-goers in Ireland
Image via wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock

10 odd facts for college-goers in Ireland

19 Aug 2013

About 76,000 potential college students will find out today what third-level institute has accepted them for study as the first round of CAO offers are eagerly opened this morning.

While the majority of CAO applications come from Ireland’s Leaving Certificate students, today’s round of offers will also be delivered to thousands of second-level students from the UK and Northern Ireland, mature applicants, students with previous third-level qualifications, and students from access programmes, such as Higher Education Access Route (HEAR) and Disability Access Route to Education (DARE).

Arts and social science courses saw the most first preferences at 16,921, followed by administration and business at 11,200, and science at 9,496. The latter two categories saw points rise as competition increases for those sectors seeing steady jobs growth in recent years.

But what’s in store for these future third-level students and what does the current Irish college landscape look like? These 10 statistics from the Higher Education Authority help provide an insight:

1. The average number of students on any degree course is 147

College degree requirements (graph)

2. Undergraduate students from Dublin’s south side outnumber northsiders by 2:1

North Side / South Side

Street art by Maser at Kings of Concrete 2011, via Come here to me!

3. There are 2.7 females for every male on education and teaching courses

calling teacher mom

4. There are 6.6 males for every female on engineering and construction courses

engineering cat

And just one cat – that we know of.

5. There are more than 12,000 full-time students and more than 12,000 part-time students who are more than 30 years of age

mature student

And a few much, much older than 30.

6. There are more than 170,000 full-time higher education students, which is about the same size as the combined populations of Sligo, Leitrim and Cavan

study time

Define ‘full-time’…

7. The greatest number of full-time students from outside Ireland come from the US (more than 2,000) while around 1,000 each come from the UK, China and Malaysia

sloth student

And this one came from South America.

8. There are more than 3,800 students engaged in online distance learning

online learning

9. Last year, 63pc of students were offered and accepted their first place choice on their CAO application

koalafications

10. There are 180 students in higher education who have their birthday on 29 February

leap day birthday

Main college students image by wavebreakmedia via Shutterstock

Elaine Burke
By Elaine Burke

Elaine Burke was editor of Silicon Republic until 2023, and is now the host of For Tech’s Sake, a co-production from Silicon Republic and The HeadStuff Podcast Network. Elaine joined Silicon Republic in 2011 as a journalist covering gadgets, new media and tech jobs. She later served as managing editor before stepping up as editor in 2019. She comes from a background in publishing and is known for being particularly pernickety when it comes to spelling and grammar – earning her the nickname, Critical Red Pen.

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