Decrease in applicant numbers for nursing and medicine – The Irish Times

College applications for nursing and medicine courses have declined this year as interest in health-related courses continues to wane during the Covid era.

In contrast, areas with a lot of job growth – such as technology, law, business and engineering – are growing in popularity this year.

The extent to which CAO entry points for individual courses increase or decrease depends on the supply and demand for places at each institution and the grades achieved by candidates.

After a number of years of grade inflation, Leaving Cert scores overall are likely to fall gradually this year as part of what officials are calling a “glide path” toward more normal earnings patterns.

A total of more than 78,000 applications were received by the Central Application Office (CAO), an almost identical number to the previous year.

Applications from the North (-13 percent) and the UK (-3 percent) have continued to fall, while applications from the EU and outside the EU have increased (+17 percent).

According to informed sources, there are also signs that college applicants are applying to newly created technical universities in larger numbers than ever before.

Many new technology universities have seen an increase in applications, while some traditional universities say their numbers are slightly down.

A detailed breakdown of the applications for this year shows that many courses in the health sector such as medicine (-11 percent) and nursing (-10 percent) have been canceled this year. Pharmacies (+10 percent) and physiotherapy (1 percent), on the other hand, were able to escape the negative trend.

Among the largest declines was veterinary medicine (-20 percent), an area that has seen very high entry points in recent years.

Languages ​​(-10 percent) and environment (-15 percent) also saw notable declines, while social sciences (-7 percent) and biological and related sciences (-4 percent) were also down.

Some of the biggest gains were in areas such as agriculture (+18 percent), law, architecture (both +6 percent), business (+4 percent), engineering and journalism (both +4 percent).

A breakdown of the application channels shows that this year there is a decrease in older students (-10 percent) and an increase in students applying through the disability access route (+13 percent).

A spokeswoman for the CAO said all numbers are subject to change when considering late applications. Students can also change their course selection until July 1st.

Around 7,000 CAO applicants had not yet indicated their choice of study at this point in time.

CAO’s Eileen Keleghan said: “The majority of CAO applicants will be eligible to use the change of mind opportunity when it opens on May 5 to add, remove or reorder course options, resulting in changes to today’s published numbers.”

At UCD, where total applications are down 0.5 per cent, Acting Deputy President and Registrar Prof Barbara Dooley said totals are returning to more normal levels following the Covid upheaval.

“In terms of student selection, there is no doubt that after the surge over the past two years, demand for the healthcare sector has declined and each of our healthcare degrees has fallen to the first 2022 preferences in Medicine, Radiography, Physiotherapy and Nursing” , she said.

The subjects with the largest increases in first preferences at UCD are architecture, agriculture, commerce, science and computer science, all up 13 to 20 percent.

At Trinity College Dublin, where the overall number of applications has fallen by almost 4 per cent, art courses remain popular, with strong gains in early and modern Irish (+60 per cent), history of art and architecture (+45 per cent) and music (+21 per cent). ).

It has seen declines for most of its business courses, while initial preferences have also declined for medicine and dentistry.

Maynooth University, where applications are up 2 percent overall, said its arts degree remains the most popular in the country, while several programs saw sharp increases in first preferences, including business and languages ​​(+37 percent), Law (+27 percent). percent), social sciences (+26 percent) and natural sciences (+12 percent).