Random Selection: Why 625 Points Sometimes Isn't Enough
August brought a headline that read like a misprint: students holding the maximum 625 points missed out on courses priced at 625. The Irish Times reported that random selection decided places at a number of cut-offs in 2025, including two courses requiring that maximum. The mechanism behind it is short, old, and worth understanding before you build a list around a single high-stakes course.
The draw, step by step
When your application goes in, the CAO attaches a random number to it. For most applicants that number stays unused. It comes into play in one situation: a course reaches its last places with more applicants tied at the cut-off score than there are places left. All applicants above the cut-off hold offers at that point. The tied applicants are then ranked by their random numbers, and offers run down that ranking until the places are gone.
Picture a course with 12 places remaining when the count reaches the applicants on 510 points, and 20 of them standing there. The 20 are identical on the measure the CAO uses, so the random numbers pick which 12 receive offers. The other eight wait for later rounds, where declined places sometimes recycle.
The asterisk on the points lists
Points lists mark these cases with an asterisk. A figure of 510* means 510 points met the standard without guaranteeing an offer; the draw separated the applicants on that score. Anyone on 511 or above was untouched by it. When you research a course, treat the asterisk as a flag that the boundary was crowded that year, and that the cut-off alone understates what most entrants scored.
Even 625 carries no guarantee
The scale tops out at 625: six H1 grades at 100 points each, plus the 25-point bonus for a H6 or better in Higher Level Maths. In 2025, two courses ended Round 1 at that maximum with random selection applied. Applicants who could not have scored one more point were separated by the draw.
Medicine sits outside this ceiling because it combines Leaving Cert points with HPAT results. That combination is how TR051, Medicine at Trinity, shows 739 for 2025, a figure beyond the standard 625 scale.
The reason a lottery exists
Once you meet a course's entry requirements, the CAO ranks you on points alone. Two applicants on 510 are identical inside that system. A tiebreak built on subject choice, school, or interview would import the judgements the points system was designed to keep out, and ranking by application date would punish people for taking time over a serious decision. A draw treats equals as equals. That is cold comfort in the year it lands on you, and it remains the least unfair option on the table.
Planning around it
The draw itself sits beyond influence; the number attaches at application and nothing you do afterwards touches it. Your leverage comes earlier in the process.
- Aim above the cut-off rather than at it. The asterisk has no power over anyone clear of the tied score. The points calculator shows which grade combinations put a margin between you and a recent cut-off, including the Higher Maths bonus.
- Check the midpoint as well as the cut-off. Published points lists carry a midpoint figure, the points of the middle admitted applicant. A wide gap between midpoint and cut-off tells you the bulk of successful applicants sat far above the line, and the boundary was a thin edge rather than the typical entry score.
- Build depth below your first choice. A list with nine live preferences under the dream course turns an unlucky draw into a detour. A list with two turns it into a crisis.
The asterisk marks the one corner of the system that no amount of points strategy controls. Respect it by clearing cut-offs with room to spare, and by writing a list that survives a bad bounce.