TWO psychology courses in Limerick colleges have attracted some of the best achieving students in the country, with over 500 CAO points.
The BEd in Education and Psychology in Mary Immaculate College, the only course of its kind in the country, saw its CAO points set at an impressive 550 as it continues to attract the country’s highest achievers.
In the University of Limerick, psychology and physiotherapy were the only courses to command in excess of 500 points, at 510 and 555 points respectively, making the latter the most popular physiotherapy programme in the country.
UL saw 23 of their courses increase in points, while points dropped for a further 20 courses.
Professor Paul McCutcheon, UL vice president academic and registrar, said it is encouraging to see an increase in demand for UL’s STEM programmes “as we are committed to supporting Ireland’s success as a Knowledge Economy by encouraging larger numbers of students to study science, technology, and engineering.”
In UL, food science and health is up by 30 points on last year’s entry level to 415 points, chemical and biochemical engineering is up 50 points to 470, and UL’s general science programme, science choice, has increased to 365.
The BEng civil engineering, delivered through problem based learning techniques, is up 25 points to 450, design and manufacture has risen 15 points to 460, and UL’s general engineering programme, Engineering Choice, is up five points to 405.
The Kemmy Business School programmes saw increases in points cross most of its business programmes; International Business is up 10 points to 470, Business Studies with French (420), and Business Studies with Japanese up 20 points to 420.
There has been continued demand for UL’s nursing programmes with General Nursing (455) and Midwifery (445) see increases of 10 points on last year’s entry point levels.
UL’s highly regarded, Sports and Exercise Science programme remains popular at 470 as does Physical Education with concurrent teacher training at 485.
Mary Immaculate College’s primary teaching programme remains one of the most popular in the country with over 2,249 applications received for its 405 places resulting in CAO points being set at 465 for this year.
The Liberal Arts Degree at MIC continues to grow in popularity witnessing a 52% increase in first preferences, and as a result the college has decided to increase the number of places available by 20% to 300 places with CAO points set at 325.
Similarly, the BA in Early Childhood Care and Education proved very attractive with a 21% increase in first preferences applications resulting in CAO points at 360 points.
More than 20,000 students accepted course offers in the first few hours after they were posted on the CAO website this Monday.