Applying to Irish universities with A levels

I was just wondering if someone could help - it's so confusing!
I'm predicted AAB/AAA at A-Level, but according to the points system used in Ireland this doens't seem to be enough at all!
I want to do psychology and philosophy, and the course I've found at Trinity College in Dublin asks for 560 points ... I'd need like 4 A*'s nearly at A level?!

Please please please can someone help? I'm also annoyed as it says they don't accept A/S levels taken previously before the first year of college, but I took 2 at school and got 2 B's - do these not count at all?!

Thanks.

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1

StarsAreFixed

Well B's won't help you anyway, does it really matter? They only accept subjects taken in one sitting of Irish exams also, you cannot mix and match- if you repeat, you repeat everything. This is probably why you're not allowed take your previous AS Levels into account.

Yep, 560 is insane. Psychology is in high demand, the lowest points for it are 500 and that isn't in Trinity. Combining two popular subjects drive up the points- they're in such high demand. And the the fact that it's Trinity which is highly competitive anyway. You would need A*A*A*A*, you absolutely would not get this course without 4 subjects and even having A*A*A*A would be risky. 560 is extremely difficult for Irish students too, only a tiny fraction get over 530 points out of 600. For an Irish student to get 560 they would need A1A1A1A2B1B2 which you'd need to be practically a genius to achieve so it's no easier for us. Taking Psychology by itself lowers the points to 540 and taking it in NUI Maynooth lowers it to 500 (though this is part of Arts). It's not down to difficulty of the course, it's down to demand for it. Nursing and IT courses are below 450 points, so is teaching, because there's less demand for them.

Reply 2

watermelon_juice

Getting into University is much, much harder than the UK. A lot of Irish people go to the UK for university because of this.

Reply 3

StarsAreFixed

This was true in the past but not so much anymore as your fees are so high. I know one person who went to uni in NI and that's it, and that was over 10 years ago when fees were more reasonable. If people don't get the points they tend to repeat, or else do a PLC course in a local college for one year )post leaving cert course) which then joins up with the related degree without points being taken into consideration- not that all courses allow this of course.

Reply 4

Callia

Does anyone know how much money you'd need to live in Dublin or Galway as a student? I've heard that the cost of living is really high in Dublin - how does it compare to London?

Reply 5

gozatron

Original post by Callia

Does anyone know how much money you'd need to live in Dublin or Galway as a student? I've heard that the cost of living is really high in Dublin - how does it compare to London?

Dublin is god-damn expensive! Think of it maybe being slightly above London in terms of expense. Galway is cheaper (not much!) but is known to have an amazing student life to compensate.

Reply 6

StarsAreFixed

Original post by Callia

Does anyone know how much money you'd need to live in Dublin or Galway as a student? I've heard that the cost of living is really high in Dublin - how does it compare to London?

A good bit more than your average British city, I don't know about London though...I found London very expensive but then I don't know it well and I know Dublin like the back of my hand. Trinity's accom is €6-9k a year, but you can get much cheaper than that- though you would be sacrificing the instant community Trinity Halls would bring. I've seen rent posted on noticeboards as low as €75 a week, which is dirt cheap and probably not a nice place to actually live. City centre accom is expensive of course, if you're prepared to live a bit outside the city and commute that would knock so much off rent. In particular if you looked at Cabra, Whitehall and Phibsboro- extremely close, but not high rents. This might help www.daft.ie to get an idea- though beware the shiny new apartments with crazy prices attached which it will be tough to actually see past.

You can pre-drink- there are permanent deals on naggins and cans, you can go to pubs and clubs with €3 drink deals, you can shop in Lidl and buy supermarket own-brand products. It's what you make it. It would be easy to live expensively in Dublin, but if you're prepared you can live very cheaply. You could get a job too with most courses, minimum wage is far higher here, so are all salaries- this balances out the cost of living.

Galway will be cheaper than Dublin accommodation wise but everything else would be the same. Drink laws are archaic- you won't get cost-price drink in pubs etc.

Reply 7

tiger17

Hi I am from England planning study medicine in Ireland next year. I am doing chemsitry, biology, physics and maths in AS level. Should be continuing all four next year as well. What grades do I need to be getting to get into a university in Ireland since they are point based?
Thanks :smile:

Reply 8

Gutterville

Original post by tiger17

I'm no expert but I hear that irish univeristies are harder to get in to then UK ones. Thats why so many irish people come to the UK and study.

Reply 9

kickasskaz01

Original post by tiger17

I was thinking of studying medicine in Ireland but then did some research to discover you need around A*A*A*A* at A level and need to sit the HPAT which is really hard apparently.

Reply 10

Callia

For 2011, the minimum points for medicine were around 740, depending on which college you chose. They count your four A Levels (or 3 A Levels and an AS) and HPAT score, which is out of 300. An A* at A Level is worth 150 points and an A is worth 135 points. Hardly anyone gets over 200 on the HPAT, I don't think. Obviously if you do really well on the HPAT you don't need to do quite so well in your A Levels. But you'll probably still need at least 2 A*s. :tongue:

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 11

Callia

There was me thinking I'd be ok on a UK student loan. :rolleyes:

How do Irish students manage? I thought the biggest maintenance grant you could get was about €6000?

Thank you so much for your help, StarsAreFixed. Everytime I read threads on applying to Ireland, there's one of your amazing posts, telling me everything I need to know :smile:

Reply 12

StarsAreFixed

Banks here are pretty much not loaning anymore and I'm fairly certain UK ones will not give you a loan to study abroad. Well lots of them have jobs and because so many commute from home, costs are far lower. Then yes some people get the grant. You need to be resident here to get the grant and total household income needs to be less than €47,000 for the lowest type of grant (much lower for the full grant). Unfortunately grants have been cut by a lot and are severely delayed due to volume of requests. And they're not dealt with centrally, individual councils do them- very messy system. Credit Unions DO give loans, freely, but you need an account with them and there needs to be money paid into it every month to qualify.

Now getting a part-time job here is much more difficult than it used to be of course but colleges themselves offer plenty of part-time jobs- Trinity offers jobs in catering, shops and the library, all paying slightly above minimum wage. Ha yes every British uni has loads of people who've been there etc. to advise but info on Trinity is thin on the ground so I step in..

Reply 13

erin94

Hi, I'm currently studying for my A levels and i'm thinking about applying to study history in Ireland perhaps at Trinity College Dublin or UCD. Just really confused about the application process as they go through CAO rather than UCAS.

Does anyone know whether its the same apply-offer-if you get the grades your in kind of process?

When do applications have to be in by, is a personal statement needed etc?

So confused and would be gratelful of any help!

Reply 14

StarsAreFixed

www.cao.ie

Actually if you search threads for Trinity College Dublin or for studying in Ireland you'll see I've replied to them all in detail, probably saying stuff I'll forget here. Irish students are thin on the ground here!

CAO and UCAS are VERY different. CAO caters for 70,000 applicants annually. We only have 7 unis in total (plenty of other colleges and IT's etc. though). You apply online by Feb 1st, applications open in November. You can do it by paper also but not near as handy. You give your basic informationl, school and exam information. You apply by genuine order of preference- sounds like you prefer TCD, so put it first even though points will be higher. No personal statement, no predicted grades, no conditional offers. You won't recieve any info from unis as they won't know you exist. CAO give you a number, you don't go by your name. This will become you student number anyway later. You'll have several opportunities to change the order of your courses etc. throughout the year before exams, and once in the middle of June during exams.

Irish results come out on a Wednesday in the middle of June, CAO offers the Monday after. The points of a course (out of a max 600 which only about 15 people get a year) are determined by how many points the applicants for a particular course have. If a course has 30 places and the 30th person has 450 points, then these are the points for the course. (They work down from the person with the highest points). CAO make the offers and then when you accept, the uni will contact you etc. Courses that are not filled drop in the second round. Please read the CAO handbook if you're unclear on anything, you can read it on the CAO website.

You can study history in Trinity by itself (single-honour), with one other subject (TSM- two subject moderatorship) or as part of other courses- History Economics and Politics and History Philosophy and Politics. Single-honour is the least points- 460. History with Psychology is the most- 550 or so. History and English is also extremely popular- around 510. With single-honour you will do more modules. 460 is well above average, you would need AABB or higher. You will need either 4 A-Levels or 3+ an AS/A2 level (I'm not exactly clear about the second bit though). No Irish uni can accept you with just 3 subjects, home students do 7 and present 6- there's no way of equating the two otherwise. You will need a foreign language to GCSE and you cannot present some 'soft' subjects- details are on www.tcd.ie. I'm pretty sure they are Media, General and ICT but I could be wrong.

You can't study history by itself at UCD. UCD only offers the general arts course- you have to pick two other subbjects, dropping one after 1st year but your degree will be in arts, not History like it would be in Trinity. UCD is 3 years, Trinity is 4. Arts at UCD is the biggest course in Ireland, more than 1200 places. It is a great uni but it's not in Dublin city or beside it, if that bothers you. It's about 20 mins away. I'm a bit biased as I went to Trinity.

Ask me if you want to know anything else. I went to Trinity. I did the Leaving Cert so I don't know the ins and outs of A-Levels and I commuted from home so I know a bit about accom and where would be a good place but not personal experience. I did LOADS of history modules (not a direct history student) and have to say, the lecturers are unbelievable- almost all are industry experts with loads of core books to their names and always on TV and radio clarifying stuff. Really History in Trinity is amazing.

Reply 15

mickeyfit

Just to correct a typo in the above - Results come out on a Wednesday in August, not June.

But other than that, as always great advise from Stars.

I also went to Trinity (did BESS, Political Science specifically) and I lived in Student Accomodation for 2 years so if you need any advice on that do let me know.

I'm also Irish though so I don't know anything specific about applying with A-Levels

Reply 16

tiger17

Original post by tiger17

Thanks everyone for the replies...really has helped me.

Reply 17

Schlegel

Original post by StarsAreFixed

If no predicted grades then how do they calculate the points? By AS?

Reply 18

StarsAreFixed

They use your actual grades, it's done after results come out. They use a conversion that means Leaving Cert grades are worth two-thirds of an A-Level, which is exactly what they do for Irish students applying to the UK anyway. An A* is worth 150 points or so, and it continues on. Not sure of the exact figures. All Irish unis do this, except for Trinity which does this but also employs another method- not sure which exactly, it sounds fairly vague.

Reply 19

StarsAreFixed

Original post by Islander15

Could someone explain the application process? Im aware of COA but not sure when to apply (for 2012 entry) and how references and such should be handled, as I wouldn't be applying through my school?

Thanks

CAO. You apply online at www.cao.ie Applications open in November and close on Feb 1 (don't apply in the last week, it always crashes under the pressure). You'll just have to fill out your personal details, name of school and exams being undertaken, then list the courses you want in genuine order of preference. You can download the CAO handbook which will explain more fully- it's under downloads on www.cao.ie You pay something like €35, by credit card or you can get a form to pay it through a bank giro.