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Times of Offers

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , on August 31, 2023 by telescoper

It’s that time of year again when I break with the self-imposed tradition of not buying a newspaper during the week. I don’t usually buy a newspaper during the week but today is the day the full set of CAO points required for different courses across the land are published in the print edition of the Irish Times, about ten days earlier than last year. This is of course just the first round of offers so things may change over the next week or two.

Students now have to decide whether to accept their first-round offer or try to change course. Departments won’t know how many new students they have for a while yet.

The official low-tech results for Maynooth (in the lower right of the page shown above) are here. Minimum points required for Maynooth’s most important course, MH206 Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, are 494 this year, down a little from 510 last year. MH201 General Science is 350 this year compared to 400 last year; MH204 Physics with Astrophysics is 376 this year, down from 423 last year. MH101 General Arts – the most popular course at Maynooth and indeed in all Ireland – has a first round offer of 310 this year, down from 338 last year.

In fact, most courses I have looked at, not only at Maynooth, have lower first-round offers this year than last year. This is confirmed by this news item which says:

In more good news for this year’s applicants, there has been a fall in the points requirement for more than 60% of Level 8 courses.

This is interesting because it contrasts with news stories about grade inflation at the Leaving Certificate. How does one reconcile the fact that a majority of courses are asking for lower points, when the average points are going up? I think part of the answer lies in the fact that the CAO points needed for a course is largely about demand versus capacity rather than academic performance. For the last few years Maynooth University has been recruiting more and more students, putting pressure on accommodation, teaching loads and campus space. It seems likely that the desire to keep this trend going is at least part of the reason for the large falls in CAO points here. This is probably happening to some extent across the sector, though Maynooth has a more urgent need for more students – to pay for the legions of new managers it has appointed.

Another part of the answer is that one subject in which grades have fallen this year is Mathematics, specifically Higher Mathematics. Mathematics is a core subject for the Leaving Certificate and it therefore has the potential to have an effect across the board. A fall in the top grades at Higher Maths will propagate downwards through many subjects.

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Festive Open Day Season

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , on November 25, 2022 by telescoper
Some Incomprehensible Marketing

We have reached the end of Week 9 at Maynooth University, so there are now just three weeks to go until end of term. All of sudden the shops are filled with Christmas whatnots and thingies, and I’ve finally bowed to pressure and bought a ticket for this year’s Messiah.

As usual for this time of the year we have a pair of Open Days for undergraduate admissions. The first was today, Friday, and catered mainly for school trips whereas tomorrow’s (i.e. Saturday’s) is usually more parents with their offspring. During the pandemic these events have been online but we’re now having them on campus so that prospective students see the important features on campus in the flesh:

For the last few years, I’ve been the main person responsible for running the Theoretical Physics part of these Open Days but now that duty has passed on to the new Head of Department. It’s not that I disliked doing these events, it’s just that I think it’s better from now on to have a fresher face doing them. Today for me has therefore largely been a normal teaching day and I’m also able to have a lie-in tomorrow morning.

In past years, before the pandemic, some lectures have been cancelled to make way for Friday Open Day talks. That has included the Friday lecture of my 2nd year module on Vector Calculus which takes place in a room previously needed for admissions business on Open Days. Now, however, a new teaching building is available and many of the Open Day talks are in there so my lecture went ahead as planned. The room next door to mine was however used for the Open Day and a group of about ten schoolgirls, dressed in green blazers and plaid skirts in a manner highly reminiscent of the Derry Girls, almost came into my lecture by mistake.

I saw quite a few visitors around the campus this morning, and some came into the Science Building for a look around, but I don’t know how busy the day was in comparison to previous November events on campus. I don’t know how busy it will be tomorrow either, as I shall be putting my feet up at home.

Today wasn’t quite a normal day, however. I had lunch in Pugin Hall. I used to do that regularly before the pandemic but today was the first time I’ve been there since March 2020. Either Pugin Hall has been closed or I’ve been too busy to have anything other than a sandwich in my office.

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Irish Times Supplement

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , on September 9, 2022 by telescoper

I don’t usually buy a newspaper during the week but I noticed that today the Irish Times published a special supplement to mark these momentous times so I made an exception. Yes, today is the day the full set of CAO points are published in the print edition, about a year since last year. The official low-tech results for Maynooth are here. Minimum points required for Maynooth’s most important course, MH206 Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, are 510 this year, down a little from 521 last year, but the same as two years ago. Generally speaking, as expected, the points for other courses seem roughly the same as last year.

Students now have to decide whether to accept their first-round offer or try to change course. I suspect there might be fewer this year doing that because of the accommodation shortage, but that remains to be seen…

P.S. There was another supplement in today’s Irish Times about the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

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Last Open Day

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , on June 25, 2022 by telescoper
Ready to go

So here I am, then, back at home. I’m not at Dublin Pride because I had to attend an Open Day at Maynooth University. It was a lot quieter than the last one I did, in April, but a reasonable number attended. The weather forecast was rather dire but it turned out to be not bad at all, if a bit breezy. Hopefully that means there was good weather for Pride too.

I’m told there were 1000 registrations as opposed to the 5000 a couple of months ago. This one is usually a bit quieter because students have basically finished making their choices by now. A show of hands in the audience in my talk suggested the vast majority were actually 5th year students, so not planning to go to University this September.

Anyway, that completes the cycle of open days for this academic year. Since I’m stepping down as Head of Department when my term ends at the end of August, this will be the last of these I shall be responsible for. I hope.

Big thanks to Dale who helped out a lot today, setting up and dismantling the stand, and to him and the others who have helped over the year.

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Timeline for Admissions

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , , on June 20, 2022 by telescoper

As the current academic year comes to a close – this week sees the final Exam Board at Maynooth University – thoughts turn with some apprehension to the start of the next.

The Leaving Certificate Examinations are taking place now and will finish on 28th June, more-or-less in line with pre-pandemic times, but the results will come out later. Normally these would be released in mid-August, so the university admissions process run by CAO would start then, giving a whole month before the start of teaching term at third-level institutions.

Last year, however, the results were not released until 3rd September 2021, which made it impossible for new students to start their courses at the scheduled time. At Maynooth, for example, first-years started a week later than returning students and missed the usual orientation week. More importantly for the students, there was a last-minute scramble for accommodation that made it impossible for many students to live anywhere near campus.

Until recently I was assuming that this year would be at least as bad as last. Although the examinations have returned to the traditional format this year, the Leaving Certificate results will be delayed again, for two (connected) reasons. One is that the Minister for Education decided that this year’s results would not be lower than last year so some scaling may be necessary and the other is that it is anticipated that more students will make use of the later alternative sittings provided for those unable to take the regular sitting owing to, e.g. ill health. These are connected because if a large number of students avail of the second setting then the scaling business will have to wait until their marks have been processed.

We know that the results will be late, but we don’t know how late they will be which is a major headache. Autumn Term in Maynooth is scheduled to start on 19th September, for returning students, but at the moment we don’t know when first years will start.

Today however there is an indication that results will probably be released in ‘late August’. If that turns out to be the case then the start of next academic year will probably turn out to be no less chaotic than this year was from at least from the point of view of teaching. I’d be relieved at any outcome that is not worse than last year. It’s even possible that teaching in Maynooth can start on 19th September for all students, though I don’t think I would bet on it. Things will be even be trickier at other institutions whose teaching term starts earlier in September.

That still leaves the problem of student accommodation, though. Here I don’t think the timeline for admissions will help much in averting an entirely predictable crisis. Once we know the dates we will make the best plans we can for teaching, but for accommodation there doesn’t seem to be any plan at all.

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Offers and Points

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , , on September 8, 2021 by telescoper
Today’s Irish Times Supplement

Yesterday the Central Admissions Office released the first round offers for entry to Irish Universities; today the details appeared in the Irish newspapers. I don’t usually buy a newspaper on a weekday but I couldn’t resist getting a copy of the Irish Times so I could pore over the information presented in the CAO supplement, of which the picture above shows only a part, rather like I tend to do with the football results or cricket scores.

As expected, the points required for courses are significantly higher than last year. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic the School Leaving Certificate involved a combination of school-based assessment and examinations that obviously worked to the benefit of the students. Looking through the results I struggled to find courses where the points requirement had fallen, but there are a few examples.

Students who have met the requirements for a course they applied to have until 13th September to decide whether to accept. There is then another round of offers starting on 20th September and closing on 22nd September. Here in Maynooth we start teaching new students on 27th September so the CAO process is very truncated this year. I’d imagine that most students will settle on their choices in the first round.

My biggest worry this year is now not to do with the business of offers and acceptances but the mad scramble for accommodation at the start of term. It’s going to be a stressful few weeks for everyone.

Anyway, let’s take a look a the offers for Maynooth. Most students in the Department of Theoretical Physics come either through our denominated programme MH206 Theoretical Physics & Mathematics (TP&M for short) or through MH201 Science (the so-called “Omnibus” Science programme):

The denominated programme in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics (MH206) is up 11 points on 521 from last year’s 510 but that’s not an exceptionally high figure in historical terms although it is one of the higher offers for Maynooth. Points for MH201 Science are also up this year to 401 from 360 last year. This is higher than I can remember any previous year I have been here.

We don’t normally publish information on how many offers have been made* so I’ll just say that on the basis of first-round offers it looks like we have done pretty well on TP&M. A good thing about this course is that it doesn’t involve laboratory work so is not constrained by capacity in the way that experimental subjects are. The total number of first-year students on MH201 for example is largely constrained by space in Chemistry labs: students are given a free choice of subjects in Year 1 so we have to allow for them all to choose any subject which leads to a bottleneck. Students on MH201 don’t choose their first-year subjects until they enrol so we won’t find out what numbers are like on this course for some time.

*I know, and could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.

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Maynooth University Open Days!

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , on November 26, 2020 by telescoper

It’s almost time once again for our autumn open days at Maynooth University. This autumn the two days are virtual events but also differ in that the first day is devoted to clubs, societies and other wider aspects of student life while the second is dedicated to information about the academic side, i.e. courses of study.

I’ve recorded some video material that will be used on the second day and I’m also going to be online on Saturday from 10am to 2pm to answer questions from prospective students. In order to experience these and other delights you have to register, which you can do here.

Here is a video tour of the Maynooth University campus, filmed in better weather!

You will see that it includes an artist’s impression of the new building on the North Campus which isn’t actually finished yet, but which is coming along nicely.

And here is a gratuitous picture of our star attraction:

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Points and Offers

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , on September 13, 2020 by telescoper

I spent a bit of time yesterday poring over the CAO offers supplement in the Weekend edition of the Irish Times. The extensive listings, of which the above picture shows just part, show the minimum number of points needed for first round offers at Ireland’s third-level institutions. Students who have met the requirements for a course they applied to have until 16th September to decide whether to accept. There is then another round of offers starting a week later on 23rd September and closing on 25th September.

Much has been made of the increase in points needed for many courses since last year. That is indeed borne out by the table, though many of the increases are relatively small.

The denominated programme in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics at Maynooth University, for example, is up 22 points on 510 from last year’s 488 but that’s not an exceptionally high figure in historical terms.

On the other hand, offers for both Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Trinity College are both down on last year (to 531 from 566 and from 565 to 543, respectively).

There are other courses here and there that have gone down too. I suspect part of the reason for this is that some courses have been allocated extra places and have had to drop their points to recruit the additional students.

Finally I noticed that the first-round points for Equine Business at Maynooth University are unchanged on last year at 357. That may not be the final offer, though. There is probably quite a lot of horse-trading in store…

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Maynooth University Open Day is here!

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , on June 27, 2020 by telescoper

So here I am at home answering questions online from visitors at our virtual Open Day. It’s actually pouring with rain which might have dampened the enthusiasm of visitors to a traditional Open Day but it’s been quite busy so far. Here is a video tour of the Maynooth University campus, filmed in better weather than today!

You will see that it includes an artist’s impression of the new building on the North Campus which isn’t actually finished yet.

And here is a gratuitous picture of our star attraction:

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Maynooth Offers

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , , on August 16, 2019 by telescoper

Well I’ve had a busy week here in Maynooth marking and checking repeat examinations (just finished this morning) during which from time to time I’ve been keeping an eye on things to do with students admissions for the forthcoming year, both here and in other institutions across Ireland. Universities and students received their Leaving Certificate results earlier in the week, but institutions then had a couple of days to decide on the basis of course capacity and the results obtained which students would receive offers of a place on which courses. This is usually expressed in terms of a points total: the more popular the course, and the better the results for applicants to that course, the higher the points required would be. Yesterday first-round offers went out from CAO across the country – there’s a summary in the Irish Times. Students who don’t get an offer from their first choice course can try in subsequent rounds to get a place at another institute.

As of yesterday afternoon, Maynooth University is expecting to admit 3,225 new first year students this year. This is the largest ever intake for the university and represents an increase of 3% from last year. This growth reflects a strong demand for places: more than 4,200 students chose Maynooth University as their first preference, an increase of 7% from last year (which I mentioned earlier this year).

At the moment it looks like being a particularly good year for our BSc Course in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, but I’d rather wait until the process is over and numbers are confirmed before commenting further.

Anyway, as the CAO process is ongoing, I thought I’d include this little video about what Maynooth has to offer undergraduate students with particular emphasis on the flexibility of its programmes whether they be in Arts & Humanities or Sciences. I wrote about the advantages of the `Omnibus Science’ programme here. If you are reading this and didn’t happen to get the points for your first-choice course then you could do a lot worse than consider Maynooth!

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