Accepting an Offer Never Kills Your Higher Choices
The most repeated piece of bad CAO advice goes like this: accept your Round 1 offer and you lose your shot at the courses you ranked above it. Parents repeat it, group chats repeat it, and each August it costs students sleep. The CAO's own rules say the opposite. Accepting an offer has no effect on your higher preferences. They stay live for Round 2 and beyond.
Two lists, scored apart
Your CAO application holds two independent lists of ten courses, one for Level 8 and one for Level 7/6. The CAO runs them as separate competitions. An offer on your Level 8 list does nothing to your Level 7/6 list, and the reverse holds too. In a single round you can receive one offer from each list.
Within one list, a single rule decides the rest. An offer kills the choices below it and leaves the choices above it alive. Memorise that line and most CAO confusion disappears.
A worked example
Say you ranked ten Level 8 courses and Round 1 offers you your fourth choice. Your list looks like this the moment that offer lands.
| Preference | Status after a Round 1 offer at number 4 |
|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | Live. Still competing in Round 2 and later rounds. |
| 4 | Offered. Accept or decline by the deadline. |
| 5 to 10 | Gone. The offer at number 4 removed them for good. |
Choices five to ten are finished. The CAO will not offer you a course ranked below one it has offered you, in this round or any later one. Choices one to three carry on competing. If points drop in Round 2 and you qualify for your second choice, the CAO offers it to you, and taking it releases the place you held at number four.
Whether you accepted number four changes none of this. Accepting secures a place you keep if nothing better arrives. Declining hands the place back and gains you nothing, because your top three were staying live either way. The one outcome declining can produce is the worst one: no movement in later rounds and no course in September.
Where the myth comes from
The confusion starts with the half of the rule that is true. An offer does kill something, the choices ranked below it. Students hear "an offer cancels other courses" and assume the damage spreads in both directions. The damage runs one way, down the list, and your higher preferences sit above the cut.
The two-list rule adds a scenario worth spelling out. Suppose Round 1 brings two offers, your fourth Level 8 choice and your first Level 7/6 choice. Accepting either one leaves your top three Level 8 preferences alive. If your second Level 8 choice arrives in Round 2, you can take it and release whichever place you held. Holding a place on one list costs you nothing on the other.
The advice that follows
Accept the best offer you receive in each round. Treat it as insurance rather than a final answer. If a higher preference comes through later, the new offer replaces the old one, and the swap costs you the time it takes to log in.
This mechanic rewards honest ranking. Put courses in the order you want them, not the order you expect to reach, because the system protects everything above an offer. A long shot at number one carries no risk to the safer choices beneath it.
Before the 2026 form opens, check how your subjects convert with the points calculator and browse the 2025 cut-offs on the course search. For the symbols printed beside those cut-offs, read our guide to CAO notation. If you are weighing how much points move after Round 1, see your chances in Round 2.