My son can’t find student accommodation in Dublin. Is it too late to change his CAO choice?

My son was thrilled with his Leaving Cert results last Friday and looks likely to get his first choice at UCD. However, he is increasingly worried about the lack of accommodation and sky-high rents. His third choice at SETU is much closer to our home near Wexford. Is there any way he can pass on his first CAO choice and accept one lower down his list?
I’m afraid there is no way for your son to change the order of his course choices. The last date by which he could have done so was July 1st last. The rules of the CAO are explicit: an applicant will always be offered the highest course choice on their list for which they meet the published course requirements.
Your son will have until 3pm on Tuesday next – September 3rd – to accept the relevant course. If he does not, the offer will lapse and he cannot be offered any other course, assuming the UCD offer he receives is his first choice.
So, what other options are there?
The CAO will publish a list of courses in the coming days that colleges have failed to fill through the first round of offers. However, I think it would be foolhardy to select one of them just to attend college this year.
There are also a range of new tertiary degree courses still open for application under a new initiative, where students will start a university degree programme in a further education facility and progress to the university campus in years two or three to complete the degree. Details of these pilot programmes on offer in your region are available online (www.nto.ie).
Another option is for your son to contact UCD when he receives the offer and seek to defer his place for 12 months. There is a good chance he will be granted a deferral and could take the place up in 2025, while working at home to raise the funds to pay for accommodation next year.
Alternatively, he could reapply to the CAO after November this year, placing the SETU course as his first choice; he would seem highly likely to receive an offer this time next year.
But, if the UCD course really is his first preference, perhaps the simplest of all options is to look at all available accommodation options over the coming weeks.
If private rented or on-campus student accommodation isn’t available, try student digs.
There are online portals for five Dublin-based colleges – Trinity, University College Dublin (UCD), Dublin City University, Dún Laoghaire’s Institute of Art Design and Technology (IADT) and the National Colleage of Art and Design – which advertise rooms aimed at students in these institutions.
Digs may have fallen out of fashion over the years, but they are a good option. More homeowners are renting their rooms out as they are eligible for tax relief up to €14,000 for rental income and, despite an accommodation crisis, many digs offers weren’t taken up last year.