After a night of sporadic waking, I finally got a glimps of the CAO tables just after four this morning. They picture may have been taken with a camera phone and incredibly blurry, but the fact I was able to make out 545 for Actuarial and Financial Studies in UCD came as a massive relief! No random selection, no 550+, I had just got in with nothing to spare! Nothing, however, quite beats confirmation from the CAO themselves. Despite crashing at 0600 on the dot (Typical Ireland!), I managed to finally accept my offer about ten minutes later!

All last night I had myself convinced it would go above 550 again. In the last 12 years, there have only been three years where it has been less than 545, and considering applications were up 16% this year, I was getting content with settling for DCU. At this stage, I cannot even say it was down to hardwork or intelligence; in my case it was just sheer luck getting the points I needed and for the CAO to work out like that! So it looks like I’ll be starting orientation this day three weeks as a fresher in UCD, as you can probably tell I’m over the moon!

This blog all year has been amazing. Just writing down everything that was going on, even if no one read it, helped to keep the year pretty much stress-free! This website has been a God-send to any LCer looking to do well. I think we all owe its founder, Patrick Barry, a serious thanks. I was lucky enough to meet him during the year, and I have to say, the man is an absolute gentleman. He makes the lives of countless Sixth Years infinitely easier. While the whole blogging experience was entirely new to me, it was certainly an enjoyable one, and definitely worth trying next year! Hearing other peoples’ experiences of what was going on was fantastic and allowed me have a different perspective to the year.

To the class of 2010, congratulations and I hope you achieved what you set out to achieve. Hopefully I’ll see a few of ye around UCD!

To the class of 2011, relax, enjoy your last year of school, work hard and play hard. Don’t become a study slave, get now and again, the Leaving Cert is nothing to be afraid of. What you put in is what you’ll get out of it. I’ll probably write a bit more here later about what’ll help you get the most out of the year, but we’ll see.

So for one last time… good luck people!

Cillian.