CAO and lottery system

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DannyBoyD

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In conversation with a colleague recently they mentioned their child was interested in a field of study which is generally over subscribed & results in a lottery system to allocate places.

I said this & then suggested it would be worth having a back up plan / alternate route in the event they weren't successful in the lottery.

I was told there'd be no problem at all as their relative was Head of XY Department at ABC University, and it wasn't what you know its who you know.

Whilst I understand this is frequently the case in Irish culture, I was pretty shocked at the inference that the CAO system was open to influence.

I wonder if this is really the case or was this just pub talk?
 
DannyBoyD said:
Whilst I understand this is frequently the case in Irish culture,
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Compared to countries where the vast majority of humans live, Ireland is not that corrupt.

DannyBoyD said:
I was pretty shocked at the inference that the CAO system was open to influence.

I wonder if this is really the case or was this just pub talk?
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Sound like the latter. As I understood it the CAO is just a sorting algorithm and HEIs are just given a list of who’s been admitted.

Although I remember a guy (late 90s) who did a bad Leaving Cert and got no CAO preferences. He directly applied to an IT in late August and it found a place for him.

But this was a low-points course.
 
Without knowing the details of the course in question it is hard to say but in principle, CAO only do a lottery where it is either a max points course or where on the final round there might be 4 people on the same points total and 3 places. CAO give a simple example here

Central Applications Office

The Central Applications Office (CAO) processes applications for undergraduate courses in Irish Higher Education Institutions.
www.cao.ie www.cao.ie

It's possible, where it is an arts or music course and a portfolio has to be provided, that some bias could occur
 
University departments just inform the CAO of the total number of places available in a degree in the September of the year before offers are made. After that they have no control whatsoever over offers that is entirely within the control of the CAO.

The CAO is jointly owned by the universities and allowing one university or department to 'game' entry to their degree clearly isn't in the collective interests of the sector.
 
And even if your colleague would be able to assert influence I their relative then they certainly shouldn't be spouting about it in the pub! Not sure if their relative would like their professional integrity to be called into question.
 
Peanuts20 said:
It's possible, where it is an arts or music course and a portfolio has to be provided, that some bias could occur
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With portfolios, it works like this.

Portfolios are submitted and assessed, and the results of the assessment are communicated to candidates, before the Leaving Cert results are known — indeed, before the candidates have sat the Leaving Cert exams. Applicants are placed on a ranked list on the basis of the portfolio assessment. This list is provided to the CAO.

When the exam results come in, the CAO offers places to candidates in descending order from this list, provided their exam results meet the minimum academic entry requirements for the course they have applied for.

The result is that there is rarely or never a lottery for portfolio-entry courses and, if there is, it's not because candidates have the same number of Leaving Cert points, but because they have been awarded the same score for their portfolio, and that turns out to be the cutoff portfolio score for entry into the course in question.

Is the system corruptible? In theory, yes; the college offering the course could have a portfolio assessment system in which assessors know the identity of the candidates (i.e. portfolios are not anonymised) and they could award higher scores to candidates that they know, or want to favour for other reasons. But, even if this were to happen — and we have no reason to think that it does — Mummy and Daddy knowing the head of the department would be no help unless the head of the department (a) is also the assessor of little Tarquin's portfolio (which is unlikely; department heads have better things to do) or (b) conspires with the assessor to award Tarquin an inflated portfolio score. And conspiracies of this kind are dangerous to the participants, since they can easily become unstuck. The head of the department may have a reason to favour little Tarquin but the assessor has none, so he will have to be bribed or bullied into co-operating, and any attempt to do that creates obvious risks for the head of the Department.

It's difficult to prove a negative, so we can't say categorically that there is never any corruption in the process. But SFAIK there have been no complaints of, still less evidence of, corruption, and on the whole it seems likely that this rarely or never happens. The head of the department would jeopardise his job and his professional reputation by asking the assessor to favour a particular candidate, which seems a lot to risk just because you are socially acquainted with Tarquin's Mummy and Daddy.
 
@ClubMan
Ha!

How do you find a plumber?
Get your eldest child into an apprenticeship?
Find work experience for your child in transition year?
Start work as a barrister?

You really want to tell me networks & contacts won't be approached for help?

Ireland is a highly networked society.

I made no suggestion of corruption. That word was used by another poster.
 
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My 2 kids did courses where portfolios were part of the process.

These were submitted, in one case presented, well in advance of the LC and they were awarded points based on these. These points were added to the LC points. It was very transparent. In fact one had an exam before he even got to presenting his work so while I guess this side was open to corruption it would have involved quite a few people. The portfolio assessment was a panel. Maybe if we were in the business we might have know a couple of them… but all that is well before the lottery system.

For regular courses it’s unlikely to be any use knowing anyone.
 
Finding TY placements was a real challenge… and the sons and daughters of people who ran businesses, be they small ones or global networks, had an easier time.

We have far too many civil servants and health care professionals in our family. We need tradespeople and business people
 
And while the CAO is a anonymous process, for the high points courses it can be useful if your parents have social and professional contacts, not CAO or college contacts. They are likely to be in higher paid jobs and can afford the grinds, language placements, school fees if that would make a difference to you academically, you might not need to work part time and can therefore focus on your study etc. etc. They can't influence the CAO but that is not the only thing that gets you your college place.

No system is perfect unfortunately.
 
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misemoi said:
And while the CAO is a anonymous process, for the high points courses it can be useful if your parents have contacts, they are likely to be in higher paid jobs and can afford the grinds, language placements, school fees if that would make a difference to you academically, you might not need to work part time and can therefore focus on your study etc. etc. They can't influence the CAO but that is not the only thing that gets you your college place.
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The abillity to finance grinds, etc, for your children has nothing to do with having contacts in the CAO or in the universities or could or would cheat the system for you. It has to do with having money, plus an awareness of what kind of supports are useful and how to access them..

We need to distinguish between (a) having social capital which can [highly arguably] unfairly smooth your way in certain life paths, and (b) corruption.
 
TomEdison said:
The abillity to finance grinds, etc, for your children has nothing to do with having contacts in the CAO or in the universities or could or would cheat the system for you. It has to do with having money, plus an awareness of what kind of supports are useful and how to access them..

We need to distinguish between (a) having social capital which can [highly arguably] unfairly smooth your way in certain life paths, and (b) corruption.
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Yes sorry will edit my post, I meant social and professional contacts, not those within colleges and CAO.
 
misemoi said:
Yes sorry will edit my post, I meant social and professional contacts, not those within colleges and CAO.
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It doesn't really have to do with social/professional contacts either. As I say, it has to do with having money.
 
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