Trinity College Dublin application for a level students

I was wondering how the system for application works, if one has not been through the Irish education system, but has GCSE's and A Levels.

I know that it's not a Northern Irish university, but I didn't know where else to post this.

Reply 1

pacni

You have to apply through a system called CAO. It's similar to UCAS but there is no personal statement, no interview (except highly competitive course like Medicine etc.) You are let in based on your results alone, which works on a point system, again similar to UCAS but not the same. I have applied this year so if you need any help with it let me know.

Reply 2

StarsAreFixed

I would disagree that it is similar to UCAS. It's really very very different. If you search for threads on Trinity or the CAO you'll find lots of replies, there's one stickied in the international study forum. There are no predicted grades, no personal statements and no interviews (unless mature student). It goes off your real grades. Our results come out on a wednesday around the 13th or so of August and the CAO offers come out the following Monday.

You apply online at www.cao.ie November- Feb. There is a late entry which costs double and you can change the order and number of courses at any time for free. The normal fee is €35

The system works by competitive demand. This is why Medicine, Pharmacy, Veterinary, Dentistry and Law are so high and why Nursing and Science courses are often much much lower than English and History. The person with the highest points gets the first place on the course, and so on down the list until the last place is filled. The system takes your first choice and if you don't have enough points or fulfil subject requirements it moves on to your second. BUT you cannot reject a course you are offered and take something lower. The system assumes you know what you want and acts accordingly, so make sure it is in GENUINE order of preference and not what you think you can get.

The points are out of a maximum of 600. This is A*A*A*A*. You can use 3 A2's and an AS but AS is worth a lot less than an a2 and for courses over 500 this won't work very well. Because our grades are much more specific and there's only 70,000 applicants, points work well but in competitive courses there are ties for the last place, indicated by an asterisk in points lists. A computer chooses the winner. This is why you MUST get more than the cut-off point from last year because you don't want to be fighting for the last place or be stuck because the points have gone up, which does happen.

There are certain requirements but I'll find the link with greater detail. You MUST have english, maths and a foreign language to at least GCSE level and you must proove this by getting the certs stamped by the school and sent to CAO. You cannot present english language and literature as subjects at A2/AS or whatever you are using for matriculation/scoring. You cannot present general studies, ICT or one other..I forget..You also must have done all of your exams in one sitting, and not have repeated one or two here and there. All of these is because our system does not allow it, because we have no 'soft' subjects and because we do english, maths, irish and a third language to leaving cert level compulsory.

It's also important to remember that you will only deal with the CAO and the universities in question will not know you exist until you accept an offer. Contact the CAO if you have questions, by email is best in busy periods (August-Oct and Jan-Feb are mental). Because of this the course order list is totally free and no need to worry about X uni seeing Y uni on it or anything. You can list 10 courses in genuine order of preference, all at one uni or at several and you can just have one course if you want.

Here are a few links you need.

The CAO handbook, a must-read. Make sure you understand it. You are a non-standard application so pay attention to that.
http://www2.cao.ie/handbook/handbook/index.php
TCD points conversion table into our points, and subject requirements etc.
http://www.tcd.ie/Admissions/undergraduate/requirements/matriculation/gcse/
TCD undergrad prospectus
http://www.tcd.ie/Admissions/undergraduate/assets/pdf/TCD_Prospectus_2012.pdf
This will list all of the points on each course page and also say minimum requirements subject-wise for you. Do not be fooled, they only want passes BUT points mean you need way more than scraped passes for nearly everything in Trinity

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 3

WillowSummers

Original post by StarsAreFixed

You cannot present english language and literature as subjects at A2/AS or whatever you are using for matriculation/scoring.

But can I have English literature by itself as a subject at A level?

Also, because I'm homeschooled, I did two A2's this year and will do two more next year, how would that affect my application?

Reply 4

StarsAreFixed

Yes one English subject by itself is fine. Read the tcd link and the cao handbook, they will mention about subjects in one year or whatever. I know you cannot repeat single subjects but im not sure about what you're talking about. You should also email cao if you can't find a direct answer.

Reply 5

thetobbit

Original post by WillowSummers

But can I have English literature by itself as a subject at A level?

Also, because I'm homeschooled, I did two A2's this year and will do two more next year, how would that affect my application?

Lol you're a very non-standard non-standard applicant then...

I would contact CAO directly I can only give general advice.

My offer (if I get one) is based on 3 A2s taken in the final year and 1 AS taken the year before. There's 3 "scenarios" like this for A-Levels so you should check those.

Reply 6

WillowSummers

Original post by thetobbit

I have emailed them, they said what you just said or 4 A2's in one year. So looks like I can't apply :frown:

Reply 7

StarsAreFixed

I suspected so but didn't want to say so without confirmation. It is because Irish students can't do that, and when we repeat we repeat all 7 subjects, and can't mix and match them. It won't of course stop you from applying to UK colleges. Splitting the stress of your subjects like that is of course a brilliant idea, but not when you're entering a system where it gives you an unfair advantage.

Reply 8

Sweet-Caroline

Regarding A-levels sat in different years, I think that unless it's not cashed in it doesn't count as having been sat in a different year, for example I sat maths A-level in my AS year but it can still count towards my points because it's not getting cashed-in until summer 2012 - least I hope that's the way it works...

Reply 9

StarsAreFixed

What? The CAO are going to take it from when you sat the exam. If you sat it in 2011 then you have an unfair advantage over those doing all of their exams in 2012. This is because no such system exists for the Leaving Cert, all 7 subjects must be repeated in one go. You cannot pit a candidate splitting their 3/4 subjects over two years against that.

Reply 10

Sweet-Caroline

What if one module of maths was sat in 2012 but the rest in 2011? Cos if I can't count maths I'm a bit screwed for getting into my chosen course :/ I rang up Trinity twice and asked about it, both times I got different answers and my school Careers dept is clueless too...

Reply 11

StarsAreFixed

The CAO are far more likely to know, Trinity do not deal with Irish and EU applications. You can email or ring them. I don't know the answer as I'm not sure when they will take that as being officially 'sat'- possibly 2011 as the majority was sat then, possibly 2012 as that was the latest! Please ring/email them in the morning, info is on their website. Best of luck with that, I hope they count it.

This needs to be more widely raised before AS/A2 are chosen in career guidance classes etc. Just a handy line 'If you are planning on applying to university in ROI you may not split subjects between years, you may not have ICT and media counted and you must sit 4 A2's for competitive courses over 500 points'. How hard would that be!!

Reply 12

Sweet-Caroline

Good idea, I hadn't actually thought about ringing CAO to check :P just the way A levels work in my school, they need to be cashed-in or certificated before they can count for anything, so hopefully that'd be seen as all of my exams having been achieved in summer 2012. If that's not the case, maybe the fact I sat one of the exams this year as opposed to last year may count :/

Yeah, I do wish they'd said about that, my school only ran that course for a year before I did it and no mention was made about how unis and particularly unis in the republic would view it. Turns out a few people from my year have had problems with Oxbridge not counting theirs as well, so idk.. :/

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Articles for you

Postgraduate Master’s Loan

What is an LLM and how could it benefit your career?

Powerful questions business students forget to ask their career advisers

Why I chose a law degree and what studying law was like

Trinity College Dublin application for a level students

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you