PPE - York or Trinity College Dublin

Are you aware that PPES at Trinity is 525 points? (With random selection, so you need higher than that to guarantee it as not everyone on 525 gets in). Not to sound like a dick or anything but from my lengthy experience of replying to CAO/Irish unis threads here, plenty of people think that the matriculation requirements are enough. These are a base level for all applicants, essentially you need to have passed a few subjects. But the actual points are much, much higher. For example somebody suggested a while ago that Medicine in Trinity only needs BCC, whereas in reality it is A*A*A*A*.

Anyway fair enough if you are aware that 525 needs high grades in 4 a-levels. AAAB is actually not enough, you might think so because it IS 525, but as I said, you need more than that. AAAA or A*AAB are perfect.

Assuming grades are not an issue and that the fact the fees are far lower in TCD you're not factoring in here...I would still pick TCD. It can compete with Warwick and Edinburgh and is more internationally known than them, in fact it is often lumped in with Oxbridge. It is an outstanding university. Great compact campus that still retains a campus feel, no end of beautiful buildings..and it's right smack in the city centre.

Ah I didn't notice your location there! If you're doing the IB the CAO operates a different points equivalence (CAO irish points) for that, so no need to bother about conversion into A-level grades.

This page is important http://www.tcd.ie/Admissions/undergraduate/requirements/matriculation/other/

And here's the IB bit http://www.tcd.ie/Admissions/undergraduate/requirements/matriculation/other/#international-baccaleureate

As you can see, the points equivalence is pretty handy. Total grade/45 x 600.

You will need to get 40 I'm afraid, 39 falls right below at 520. 40 gets you about 533, perfect. 35 is too low, it is about 467.

You can resit, but you need to basically resit the whole thing, all subjects. You can only take the grades and points from one of these sittings. ie. you cannot mix and match subjects done in different years. This is because the Irish Leaving Cert doesn't allow this- it's repeat all 7 subjects or nothing.

If you're applying as an EU student then the fees are the same as home fees, €2000 a year.

It's not a glitch. You can apply for 10 courses at Trinity, or any combination of Irish unis...so ten courses in five unis, or whatever. Most fill out the form, but you can leave it at 1 or 2 if you want, so it's pretty open. They need to be in GENUINE ORDER OR PREFERENCE, and NOT what you think you're capable of getting. That's the most important thing as if you undersell yourself and end up with enough points for your favourite, if you haven't put it at the top you won't get it since you'll have enough points for whatever you put first. They will never offer you a course lower than one you fulfil requirements for and have the points for.

The CAO handbook is here http://www2.cao.ie/handbook/handbook/index.php

You can see the pdf of 2011 CAO points here. http://www2.cao.ie/points/lv8_11.pdf

It's the first column of points that's the most important, the second one is just what the average student on the course got. An asterisk means it's very competitive and will use random selection. Trinity is a bit of the way down.

Are you interested in BESS at all? It is business economics and social studies. The first year is general and includes things like maths and statistics BUT you can have it as pure economics in your final year and graduate as that. It's very versatile and extremely well respected. It's also lower points, it hovers around 460 I think.

Aside from BESS and PPES, none of your other choices will appear on that points list, because they are TSM- two subject, and impossible to calibrate points for properly. English and latin will be the lowest, in the 400's. The ones with economics will also be in the 400's, higher than latin though. English and history is probably the most popular combo and as a result hovers around 510-520, so you would still need 39 in the IB for that.

I would not really be able to rank York fairly on those subjects. I know that Trinity excels in them, I can't really speak for York. Trinity ranks higher overall though.

Yes I think that's what drives TCD so far up the rankings, the most competitive courses are extremely difficult to get into...for all students, the CAO is so fair it doesn't favour anyone. It's harder than Oxbridge grades wise, but there are no interviews or personal statements so perhaps not AS hard otherwise.

Well the thing is, points fluctuate. It is absolutely worth keeping it at the top, much better than not doing so and regretting it. You can of course shuffle the order of your choices easily online, your CAO application remains 'open' for you to do this at will, up until June I think. They tend to climb in TCD rather than drop, but you never know. If you don't have enough points, they'll just strike it out and evaluate your next choice- so you don't have anything to lose.

Ah that's unfortunate about the resits. And a crying shame they don't allow it for the Leaving Cert..would be easier for us and would open the field for resits from non-Irish applicants.

BESS has been going a lot longer than PPES. PPES incorporates some of it, but is only about 7 years old. If PPES continues to become more popular and TCD get more funding, they'll allow more places in it and the points will drop. Unlikely however when the university isn't flush with cash right now. But that is what happened with BESS- it should by rights be far higher points-wise because it's so popular, but there's hundreds of places in it which drive the points down.

Random selection only applies when they're filling the last place on a course. Because our grades and points are quite specific and there's only about 70,000 applicants, it's perfectly possible to fill a course and not have a scramble for the last place with several people having the same points. But this is a factor for the very competitive courses. So what they do in that case is feed their CAO numbers into a computer and the computer picks the lucky one! Sounds a bit mad I know. But say if they do that for place number 30, it still means that the first 29 got their places as normal. It reinforces the fact that when you're applying for a competitive course like that, you need to have more points than the points of the course, to be safe.

You might find this forum useful. It's Irish and people won't really be able to rank other unis for you, but there's always loads of threads on BESS and you can search for PPES and opinions on it and the course structure.


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=468

Have a good luck at the prospectus also for more info on courses, it's on www.tcd.ie prospective students, somewhere on that page.

Anyway if TCD doesn't work out for you, there's always postgrad if you're considering that Best of luck.