Last Friday morning Wexford student Sarah Kenny (19) was celebrating after securing a maximum of 625 points in her Leaving Cert.
“It was a really emotional time for everyone. Seven H1s – I’d never seen a set of results like it,” said her father, Bobby Kenny, an accountant in Crossabeg, Co Wexford. “She was on an absolute high. She was almost afraid to tell anyone, in case she sounded cocky.”
By yesterday afternoon, when CAO offers were issued at 2pm, she was in a flood of tears.
She discovered that she had missed out on her dream course of economics and finance at UCD after successful applicants were chosen by lottery.
“The girl couldn’t have worked harder or achieved a higher grade. Think about that. Yet she was sitting at home crying her eyes out, disappointed, gutted and disillusioned with the Irish education system that she couldn’t fulfil her dreams.”
Economics and finance is one of more than 20 CAO courses where universities were forced to use random selection, or a lottery, to select successful applicants.
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Colleges have blamed inflated Leaving Cert grades for making it difficult to differentiate between candidates on top grades for high-demand courses.
When asked about the use of random selection on Thursday, Minister for Higher Education Patrick O’Donovan said overall statistics for this year’s Leaving Cert were “quite positive” with more than half securing a first preference course.
In relation to grade inflation, he told RTÉ radio: “We had to be fair, we had to take into account that for an awful lot of students, they had never sat a formal second level exam under the State Examinations Commission ...
“No matter what way this is approached, someone was going to cry that this is unfair.”
Mr Kenny, however, said students like his daughter were being unfairly treated after working as hard as they could.
“This is not ‘fair and equitable’ like Patrick O’Donovan said. This is just wrong. They need to increase the intake for our top students in any course and stop this pick out of a hat joke. This is her future we’re talking about that shouldn’t be left to chance,” he said.
Mr Kenny said his daughter, who attended the Ursuline Convent in Thurles, Co Tipperary, visited the campuses of a number of universities last year to research her options. The course of economics and finance at UCD “jumped out at her”.
“I’m an accountant by trade – maybe my career rubbed off on her to a certain degree over the years. Her pull is really towards accounting or commerce. This was her dream course,” he said.
“She has her second option in Cork [finance at UCC], but this isn’t what she craves. She worked so hard to get 625 to get this course and is now inconsolable. In the 21st century, this is unbelievable that this can happen in Ireland.”
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