At the close of round one at 5.15pm last Monday, CAO reported that it had received a total of 36,392 acceptances in that round. This represents around 75pc of the 48,448 applicants who received an offer in round one.

College admissions offices all over the country are busy today, as admissions officers reconcile their CAO round-one acceptances with the number of places on each course.

Some applicants may have not yet accepted their CAO offer, but they still have the weekend to finally decide, before the round one acceptance deadline of 5.15pm on Monday next, August 30.

Of all the ways of losing a college place, random selection must be the most painful. On CAO points charts, an asterisk or star sign after a cut-off point for a course indicates that random selection applied for the last places on that course.

IT was 535 -- no, not points, but the time I was woken up yesterday morning by both the dog and the cat, who seemed to know something was up.