#university-admissions

#university-admissions

The pact requires universities to cap enrollment of international students, commit to strict definitions of gender, freeze tuition for five years, conductmerit-based faculty hiring, and ban race and gender in admissions decisions. Several of the schools the Trump administration approached about the compact previously had funding disputes over changes in their research policy or DEI initiatives. Agreeing to the pact would have given the universities priority for grants and invitations to White House events.

Round two of CAO offers are out today and I suspect it'll be busy due to, what's this we're calling it, volatility in points for courses. Volatility, also known as a huge hike in points for the majority of degree courses in our top universities. Yes, the attempt at grade deflation didn't work to bring down course requirements, so we still saw kids with 625 points missing out on their first preferences while places were awarded by the random selection lottery.

While grade inflation eased, it was offset by the record number of CAO applications, hitting almost 90,000 this year. Significantly, applicants included almost 20,000 Leaving Cert candidates from previous years, likely to include many from 2024 who have the benefit of an average 7pc artificial boost to their results, when compared with pre-pandemic levels. The 7pc increase translated into an average additional 60 points per student and, with grade inflation reduced to 5.9pc this year, that 60-point boost is reduced by an average of about 10 points.