Among students who were disappointed when the CAO made its college offers on Wednesday are those who lost out through random selection.
Their disappointment is keen because they did, literally, make the grade.
They got the points they needed but they tied with other students at the cut-off line for the last place or places on the course they had set their heart on.
Random selection is not something that only affects those with the highest points.
At Dundalk Institute of Technology random selection was used to pick the last students for two mid-ranking courses.
There are 21 places on DkIT's Midwifery course and the cut-off this year was 413. With two last places available three applicants were tied, all with a score of 413. The college had to choose between them and so one of them lost out.
DkIT was offering 32 places on its Level 7 Veterinary Nursing course and once again three applicants, all with 455 points, were vying for the last two places. But only one could be accepted.
It is no comfort to those students who lost out as a result of random selection, but their numbers are few. And they are considerably fewer than in the past.
A total of 24 undergraduate courses were obliged to use random selection this year. We don’t know how many students were affected because most of the colleges are reluctant to release that data but Trinity College, which this year used random selection on six courses, reckons around a dozen applicants to their courses lost out in total.
The overall number is probably fewer than 60 students.
Years ago, the problem was much greater. In 2016 Trinity College used random selection on 25 courses.
In 2017 the points system was changed to a non-linear one. Instead of using increments of 5 in calculating points the numbers were made uneven. This was deliberately done in order to reduce considerably the number of students achieving identical point scores and therefore the use of random selection, and it worked.
But the fact that more students lately have been achieving the highest score of 625 does mean that this is one place where random selection is likely to be utilised.
Among the 24 undergraduate courses that used random selection this year it appears that four courses applied it for students who achieved the top mark of 625. (They include two Medicine courses where inclusion of HPAT scores in the final points requirement makes it harder to know for sure.)
A score of 613 is also a particular sticking point. This is the score achieved by a student who gets five H1s and one H2. Four courses this year used random selection among students who had achieved 613 points.
Unlucky students applying for a range of courses also tied at other scores, at 443 for Electronic and Computer Engineering at the University of Limerick for example, and at 429 for Education, Home Economics and Irish at Atlantic Technological University.
How does random selection work?
Every student who applies to the CAO is immediately allocated a six-digit number for each of the courses they list on their form. The first three digits are their Leaving Certificate points and an algorithm allocates the final three digits randomly. A student might get 001 or they might be given 999. It is this number that comes into play when random selection is applied.
Every third level institution gets a list of applicants for each course from the CAO, ordered by their points.
Ronan Hodson is Head of Admissions at Trinity College. He explained to RTÉ News how random selection works from this point on: "If I have 20 places to offer on a course, I go down that list until [in the case of random selection] I have two people separated by this random number".
The person with the highest random number will be offered that last place.
Many institutions try to avoid using random selection because they know it is unfair.
"We try very hard to stop the list at a point where we have cleared one number, we try very hard to avoid random selection because we realise it is upsetting to people, but sometimes it isn’t possible," Mr Hodson told RTÉ News.
But sometimes, and with some courses, there is wriggle room. This year Trinity College managed to avoid random selection for Medicine.
"We have 130 places for Medicine and this year I released a couple of extra places in order to avoid that dreaded [random selection]".
UCD too managed to avoid random selection for its Medicine course this year.
Although he acknowledges the unfairness of random selection, Ronan Hodson strongly defends the CAO system overall.
"People give the CAO a hard time but it is the most rigidly fair, incorruptible admissions system in the world," he said.
"It is completely objective."
When you look at the UK system or the system in the US he has a point. In the UK, student applications to individual colleges often include personal statements. The content of those statements and their tone can be key. Applicants to the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge and elsewhere are also called for interview.
Admission depends not just on a student’s results but on a whole range of other subjective factors: the impression an applicant makes at interview for instance or through their personal statement, and the student who has a highly literate parent for instance, who can help them with that statement, has an immediate advantage.
In the US some colleges operate legacy systems: if your father or mother is a graduate then you have a greater right of entry.
The CAO can feel brutal and blunt but there is no denying that it is completely blind.
Every applicant is just a number and there is a lot to be said for that. How you speak, where you come from, what clothes you wear, none of this matters in the slightest.
There is no doubting that random selection is unfair, but it pales in comparison with all the other inequalities that come into play far earlier in our education system and even before a child enters school.
A child born into poverty is unlikely to ever be vying for a place in Medicine or any of the other top points courses.
Data gathered annually by the Higher Education Authority reveals this fundamental inequality starkly. It shows for example that Medicine is among three fields of study here among all courses that attract the highest proportion of affluent students.
It is unfair when a blunt instrument such as the CAO points system means a student loses out through random selection, but the greatest unfairness and the one that affects the largest number of students is social class and the randomness of birth.
