Question
My son is sitting the Leaving Cert next June and his school has advised us that the CAO application process will open today. As a first-time parent, I’ve no idea how to help ensure he completes the application process properly.
Can you offer any advice?
Answer
You are correct: the Central Applications Office (CAO), which processes college offers for undergraduate courses in Irish higher education institutions, opens to applicants on November 5th.
If I have one piece of advice for parents, it is to ensure your child reads the 2026 online CAO Handbook carefully. It will give them the best chance of successfully navigating their way through the process. The digital version is available online (the printed handbook is no longer distributed to students)
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After reading the handbook instructions, your son should log on to cao.ie from November 5th and simply click on “apply”. He will be asked to provide his personal details which will take less than five minutes. He will immediately be issued with his unique CAO number.
He can return to the CAO site over the coming months and list his initial preferred courses. In most cases, there is no great urgency in finalising course choices until after the end of the Leaving Cert exams in late June 2026, as the final date to amend his course choices is July 1st next.
However, it is important to identify any courses marked as “restricted”. They normally involve programmes with a portfolio or performance element – such as some art courses – which are assessed in March/April each year. The initial closing date for these courses is February 1st.
There are also important deadlines for access schemes. They provide a pathway to courses with reduced points for applicants with disabilities or from disadvantaged backgrounds. Further information on deadlines for applications and correspondence to the Dare (Disability Access Route to Education) and Hear (Higher Education Access Route) programmes is available online.
If your son is going to apply for Hear or Dare you need to begin to compile the necessary documentation as soon as possible because the deadline has been moved back this year to March 10th at 5pm.
He will also be able to avail of a document upload facility from 2026, but not including Hear, Dare, Medial Disability or Grad Med documents which will still have to be posted.
It is also vital to remind your son to deal promptly with any correspondence from the CAO. This includes the “statement of application record”, which is sent by email to all applicants before the end of May.
This is intended to ensure that applicants’ information has been recorded correctly. He should also check the correspondence section of his CAO account for any further verification messages during the summer months.
I can’t emphasise enough how important this is.
Every year, some students miss out on round-one offers due to errors or omissions, or fail to spot an important message that arrived during the summer.
The initial application costs €35 until January 20th; thereafter, it increases to €50.
- email: askbrian@irishtimes.com
