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Portfolio Courses: Why the Points Go Above 625

The Leaving Cert tops out at 625 points, so a course listing a cut-off of 960 looks like a misprint. The number is correct. It belongs to a different scoring system. Art, design and film courses at colleges such as IADT mark a portfolio alongside your exams, and the points they publish combine the two scores.

How the combined score works

IADT's method runs in three steps:

  1. Assessors mark your portfolio out of 600. The pass mark is 240, and a portfolio below it ends the application regardless of exam results.
  2. Your Leaving Cert points are counted as normal, to a maximum of 625.
  3. The two scores are added together, giving a possible total of 1,225.

That combined total is the number that appears on the CAO points list, which is how a cut-off climbs past anything the exams alone can produce. On the official charts these courses carry the # symbol; our notation guide covers that code in full.

DL843, a worked example

DL843, Film at IADT, had a 2025 cut-off of 960 and a midpoint of 1,080. Run the arithmetic and the shape of the competition appears. A student with 450 Leaving Cert points and a portfolio marked 510 holds 960, level with the cut-off. A student with 510 exam points reaches the same total with a 450 portfolio. Strong portfolio work buys back exam points, and strong exams buy back a weaker portfolio. Both halves count, and a brilliant score on one side can carry a modest score on the other.

Notice the 120-point spread between DL843's cut-off and midpoint. Standard courses run far tighter; DN150 at UCD, an engineering course scored on exam points alone, showed a 23-point gap in 2025. Portfolio courses show wider gaps because two scores vary instead of one: DL843's 2025 gap was 120 points. Treat the midpoint, 1,080 in this case, as your working target rather than the cut-off.

The deadline falls months before results

The portfolio timetable catches people out more than the maths does. Each college sets its own submission deadline, and those deadlines fall months before results day, set by each college and published on its own site, months before results day. A student who discovers a portfolio course in June has missed that year's window, whatever their exam results turn out to be. Assessment happens in spring, long before the August offers, so by results day the portfolio half of your score has been settled for months and the exams decide the rest.

If a portfolio course sits anywhere on your list for 2026, two checks belong in your diary now: the college's own website for its submission date and format, and cao.ie for this year's application dates. Fifth years have the easier path here, since a portfolio built over eighteen months beats one assembled over a midterm break.

Comparing like with like

Combined totals make portfolio courses awkward neighbours on a points list. A 960 sitting beside a 450 means little until you know which scale each number uses. The course search includes a filter to hide portfolio and test courses, which keeps comparisons on the plain Leaving Cert scale while you draft a list. For the exam half of the sum, the points calculator converts your grades in a few seconds.

A 960-point cut-off signals a two-part contest, with half the marks decided at a desk in February rather than an exam hall in June. A student who sees the split in fifth year can prepare for both halves on a sane timetable, building the portfolio through the winter while keeping the exam subjects on track. The ones who read 960 as an impossible exam score rule themselves out of courses they could have won.