This is a subscriber-only article
Just under 1,580 students have applied for level six and seven agricultural courses this year, according to the latest figures from the Central Applications Office (CAO). This represents a 15% drop on 2017.
Almost 600 students put level six and seven agriculture as their first choice, 13% lower than last year.
The fall was not as drastic for level eight agricultural courses, with 1,690 mentioning it on their application (-2%) and 348 putting it as first preference (+6%).
Veterinary
It was the same for level eight veterinary courses. Almost 1,893 applied for the course, which was 2% lower than last year. Half of those had veterinary as their first choice, showing a 9% fall.
Level six and seven veterinary courses proved more popular, with a 3% rise in total mentions (2,276) and a 1% rise in first preferences (922).
Forestry
Forestry saw the big fall-off in terms of first-preference level eight courses, with a significant 37% fall. It also had a 25% fall in level six and seven courses.
In total, almost 1,700 applications for level eight agricultural courses were seen in the CAO for 2018, while veterinary saw almost 1,900 and forestry had over 160 total mentions.
Overall, the total number of applications on the CAO are down almost 5%, from 76,086 in 2017 to 72,643 this year.
SHARING OPTIONS: