Ambrosia Software Web Board: Leaving Certificate Results - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Hey everybody, Ankhwatcher here. I just felt obligated to report that I got:

English (Higher Level) C1
Engineering (Higher Level) C1
Mathematics (Higher Level) D1
Geography (Higher Level) D2
Physics (Higher Level) D2
LCVP (Common Level) Merit

This worked out as 345 points. The max number of points is 600 (100 points each for your best six subjects).
I wont know which course this will get me into until monday.

-Ankhwatcher, signing out.

i have no idea what you're talking about, other then something about school and testing.

Probably a private school.

They do it diff'rently across the pond.

These are my Leaving Certificate results. In Ireland you take the Leaving Cert.
Based on these results you are accepted or rejected for College and University courses.

Learn people! I know what the SAT's are!

This post has been edited by ankhwatcher: 27 August 2005 - 03:19 PM

Heh, I guess that's okay.

I'm taking the SATs this year (2-3 times or so).

The real question is, do you know what the ACTs are?

So, you take these once you graduate High School to determine which colleges accept you, or what courses you take at a college you've been accepted into already?

Ah, but do you know what the Abitur is?

Destroyer E, on Aug 20 2005, 05:22 PM, said:

35!

Destroyer E, on Aug 21 2005, 12:22 AM, said:

yeah its "designed to assess high school students' general educational development and their ability to complete college-level work. Site includes registration information, test prep tips, sample questions, and score information."
you see, unlike you people I know how to use a search engine...

Trah said:

Actually its not just the college or just the course, its the course in the specific college, for example the course i got into was Preliminary Engineering at DIT..

The Apple Core (I don't have time for crazy o's) said:

A German end of second level education test and a word that has become associated with all major exams.-Yahoo!

ankhwatcher, on Aug 27 2005, 02:16 PM, said:

I actually generally knew what they were, but I did a little search for some more info, and can now safely say, after fully reading up on what a Leaving Certificate is, that I have absolutely no friggen' idea about what you accomplish with the test.

Let me see if I got this right. It's a test you take to judge how much you know so that they may place you in a school where you can learn more about nothing in particular so that you may take another exam to be placed into another school where you may actually learn something applicable to your chosen profession, right? You also don't really have any choice of what school or program you are accepted into,, right? What happens if, A) you don't want to go to want to go to DIT, you can't go to DIT (financial reasons, you don't live in Dublin, etc.), or C) you decide, after a year in the engineering program, you decide that you want to be an economist instead, do you take the exam again? Are you screwed?

-Pufer

Pufer, on Aug 28 2005, 04:51 AM, said:

Basically, in the Republic of Ireland third-level education (colleges, universities, IT schools) are entered via the Leaving Certificate examinations. The Irish universities generally do not take into account how much you're willing to pay them or how well or badly you did in school, as long as you at one point sat these exams. It's not an aptitude test, just a series of exams over a couple of weeks to see how much you know in each of the subjects you took. Of course, if you fell sick during those two weeks that would really suck. But that's another matter.

Pufer, on Aug 28 2005, 04:51 AM, said:

Well, it's a lot more complicated than that. You DO have a choice, you fill out your ten preferred degree and diploma courses on a sheet and mail it to the exam authorities long before the exams themselves. Of course, the variable here is that you may or may not do well enough on the exams to get into your first choice. And if your first choice degree course comes up, you can't just change your mind and take your second choice - you HAVE to take your first choice, or else wait until next year. This is because the places for most of the Irish universities fill up very quickly.

It may seem a bit unfair (at least it did to me), but in a way it democratises the education system. If you got a perfect 600 points on the exams, then no matter how poor you are you can still get a full scholarship in medicine for the Royal College Of Surgeons in Dublin ahead of a rich person who didn't do as well. The fact that the number of "points" required for a course depends on the demand for places versus the number of places rather than the reputation of the college has evened out the playing field as well, to a limited extent. There aren't any "bad" universities in Ireland as a result.

Pufer, on Aug 28 2005, 04:51 AM, said:

Well, as I said earlier you do in fact have a choice in what course you want to enter. If you do badly enough so that you make none of your ten degree or ten diploma selections, you just get no offer from any college. If either that happens or for whatever reason (as you outlined above) you don't want to take the degree or diploma courses you were offered, you would have to repeat the year. In a way though it's your responsibility on how well you have managed the exam and also how well you have picked your ten degree and ten diploma choices. The only real difficulty this year has been for people wanting to apply for medicine, with the demand for places exceeding the number of places by about eightfold. Hence many very clever aspiring doctors I know have got better results than me, but had to repeat the year anyway. s### happens.

This post has been edited by Hector Gilbert: 28 August 2005 - 12:47 PM

Thanks, that clears it up quite a bit, but has brought up another question in my mind. How representative is the second-level curriculum of potential career paths? This is to say, do you really get a taste of what is out there to do prior to being forced (I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way) to choose what your course of study, and, by extension, your career, will be? I only ask because the average American university student changes his/her course of study some four times between the time they first attend college and the date of their graduation. Is there a sort of "undecided" course you can take at uni?

-Pufer

Pufer, on Aug 29 2005, 04:46 AM, said:

Based on what I've heard at least, that's one of the biggest differences between North American universities and Irish universities. Once you take a course, you may do variations on the theme but for the most part you have to stick to it. Now, I'm going to take a four-year mathematics course starting this year. In this course you will eventually get a choice of specialising in one among a range of different mathematical fields including say topology, statistics (possible actuary work?), and physics. But I'm not allowed to, say, take up a philosophy course. Not even in first year.

One of the exceptions is first arts/first science, which is a very popular degree course among the big universities (UCD in particular). Here you'd have a broad selection of different fields to choose from, and in first year you take your pick of the courses. In the UCD model, first arts has a selection of different courses involved in the facility (such as philosophy, French, and surprisingly enough mathematics) and a student has a choice of three. Of those three, one can be dropped after first year but two must be taken. The reasoning behind the popularity of this course compared with that of more specialised courses is plain: many students are not too sure of what to do. But there's still not all that much flexibility in this model.

The last year of secondary school in Ireland often involves a lot of pressure. One of the reasons is obviously the presence of the Leaving Certificate exam. However, another one of the reasons is having to make a decision on what to do in third-level education in the middle of all this. There are people out there who are dedicated to their careers from a young age, but they are as always in the minority. Hence quite a few people drop out of college in first year, just because they decided that they had made the wrong choice. It is much more costly, in both time and money, to have to reapply for college than to just take the first thing you get and stick with it. It is of course an option, but it is costly.

I shouldn't say that the Irish secondary school system is completely incompetent in providing students with information about college choices, because it's not. In the last year in secondary school most of us attended numerous college open days and sat through many talks from visiting representatives of Irish universities and vocational training colleges. It's just that the decision of where one wants to go with their life is difficult for most school-leavers.

This post has been edited by Hector Gilbert: 29 August 2005 - 06:38 PM

Thank you sir, that was very informative.

-Pufer

Wow... I never actually thought I'd see someone that made larger posts than Pufer.

[Note: I read none of it!]

This post has been edited by Destroyer E: 30 August 2005 - 09:16 PM

Pah. I'm just getting lazy in my old age.

-Pufer

I don't usually write posts that long, but the subject of the Irish educational system appeared to demand it.