CAO Offers: Rounds, Accepting a Place and Change of Mind Explained

How the CAO offer system works

The Central Applications Office (CAO) processes undergraduate applications to Ireland's higher-education institutions. You list courses in order of genuine preference, and after results are available the CAO makes offers in a series of rounds. You are offered the highest course on your list for which you qualify and for which a place is available.

This guide is about the acceptance side — the offer rounds, how to accept, and how changing between offers works. It is the counterpart to the application-and-points side of the CAO, and to the UK's firm/insurance and results-day process on the UCAS side.

Exact dates, points and offer figures change every cycle, so this explains the mechanics; take the current dates from cao.ie.

The offer rounds

The CAO issues offers in numbered rounds. Earlier rounds (such as Round A and Round Zero) go to specific categories — for example deferred, mature, and certain graduate-entry or QQI/FET applicants — who are assessed on other criteria and are not competing with school-leavers awaiting exam results.

Round One is the main round, made after the Leaving Certificate results are available; it is when most school-leavers receive their first offer. Subsequent rounds (Round Two and onwards) fill places that remain or that free up as applicants decline.

In a later round you can receive an offer for a course you ranked higher than your current one — that is the whole point of the rounds: to keep offering you the best available course on your list as places move.

• Round A / Round Zero — early rounds for specific applicant categories.
• Round One — the main round after Leaving Cert results.
• Round Two onward — offers for places that remain or free up.

How to accept a place

When you receive an offer, you accept it online through the 'My Application' facility on cao.ie by the reply date shown with the offer. Each round has a stated reply deadline (a short window), and if you do not reply by it, the offer can lapse.

Accepting an offer does not end your chances of a better one. You can accept your current offer and still be considered for higher-preference courses in later rounds if a place becomes available and you are eligible — accepting does not remove you from consideration for the courses you ranked above it.

Always note the exact reply date on your offer and respond in time. The current reply deadlines are published on cao.ie for each round.

Changing between offers in later rounds

If you have already accepted an offer and then receive a new offer in a later round for a course you prefer (one you ranked higher), you accept the new offer by its reply date. Doing so automatically cancels your previous acceptance — you do not need to formally decline the old one.

If you do not prefer the new offer, you simply do nothing: your existing acceptance stands and the new offer lapses. You never lose a place you have accepted by ignoring a lower-preference new offer.

This is why ranking your list in true order of preference matters — the system always offers up your list, and accepting a higher-preference offer replaces the lower one cleanly.

• Prefer the new (higher) offer → accept it; the old acceptance is cancelled.
• Don't prefer it → do nothing; your existing acceptance stays.
• You only ever move up your own preference list.

Change of Mind — before offers

Separate from accepting offers is the Change of Mind facility, which lets you re-order or change your course choices after you have applied but before offers are made. It is free of charge and you can use it as many times as you like within the window.

A new Change of Mind cancels and supersedes your previous choices in whichever course category (Level 8, or Level 7/6) you change — changing one category does not affect the other. The facility opens in the spring and closes at 17:00 on 1 July (subject to any restricted-course exceptions), so this is your last chance to fix your preference list before the main offers.

Because Change of Mind happens before offers and accepting happens after, don't confuse the two. Confirm the current Change of Mind dates on cao.ie.

• Free and repeatable within the window.
• A new submission supersedes prior choices in the changed category only.
• Closes at 17:00 on 1 July.

Available Places for remaining vacancies

After Round One offers begin, courses that still have vacancies are advertised through the Available Places facility on cao.ie. This lets you apply for a course that has room even if you had not listed it, subject to meeting the normal minimum entry requirements.

Existing CAO applicants add an available-place course through 'My Application' at no extra fee, and it may only be ranked higher than any offer you currently hold; accepting an available-place offer cancels and supersedes your previous offers and acceptances. New applicants can register and pay the applicable fee to use it. Course lists update continuously.

Amounts and dates change each year, so check the current Available Places list, requirements and any fee on cao.ie before applying.

• Advertises courses with vacancies after Round One.
• Existing applicants add them via My Application (no extra fee).
• Accepting an available place supersedes prior offers/acceptances.
• Must meet the course's minimum entry requirements.