EXPLAINER: How 2025 Leaving Cert students could lose college places to 'Covid kids'

Students currently sitting Leaving Cert 2025 could miss out on their preferred college place to someone who sat the exams in the last five years due to a phased reversal of grade inflation. 

So-called 'Covid kids' from 2020 benefitted from predicted grades which artificially inflated their grades by almost 4.5%. They were given 'predicted grades' by their own teachers in a controversial move taken out of necessity in the midst of the worldwide pandemic.

A year later in 2021 after a disrupted school year, Leaving Cert students were given the option of sitting the exams and taking their chance, or receiving predicted grades. The result of that hybrid solution was another 2.5% spike in overall grades, a further artificial inflation. 

As a result, grades for Leaving Cert students in 2022, 2023 and 2024 had to be similarly inflated. This was a major fly in the ointment for authorities who had been keeping grades at the same level year after year by using a "bell curve." After all papers were graded, extra marks were applied to ensure a similar proportion of students achieved H1, H2 and H3s, or As, Bs and Cs in old money year on year.

What is happening grades in 2025?

So, in the last few years, grades have been inflated after the fact to the tune of 7% to match the artificial rise of those two Covid years. However, reforms announced earlier this year will see this year's inflation reduced to 5.5% with an incremental return to normal over the next few years.

This caused much consternation among the current crop of students. In reality, it means a student sitting their exam in 2025 will get between 10-15 fewer points for the same Leaving Cert results than a comrade who was in their seat last year. Given the points race for college places through the CAO system, students and parents were outraged.

The CAO and the Covid kids

This is where things get complicated for the 2025 crop because along with a high proportion of the 140,000 students sitting their exams this year, around 15,000 people who sat their exams between 2020 and 2024 are vying for the same college places with vastly more inflated grades. These students have applied to the CAO with offers due to be issued in the weeks after the Leaving Cert results are released on August 22. 

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So for example, the benchmark to get into a certain course could be 545 points. Student A, who sat their Leaving Cert in 2024 and was awarded 550 points gets in. Student B, who produced just as good a Leaving Cert as Student A will miss out on 538 points given the 1.5% differential in the grade inflation applied to their results. 

Spare a thought for the Leaving Cert students of 2026 and 2027 as further reductions in the grade inflation model are planned for them but they could end up competing with students from 2020-2024 who had a 7% bump to their grades, while they might get a 4% and 2.5% bump applied to their results. 

What the Government says?

The Department of Education and the last two Ministers have defended this decision with Norma Foley announcing it last year and her successor Helen McEntee backing it this week.

They say the gradual elimination of the inflated grades ensures "no cliff edge" for students with Helen McEntee telling Newstalk Breakfast this week that these changes have been made "with the best interests of students at heart."

“The changes that are happening this year are much lower and much smaller than could have been and previously had been," she added.

She said almost 90% of students applying for the CAO receive an offer from their top three choices. She said the inflation is causing more students than ever to miss out on places and that the reversal of that 7% hike is the only solution. 

“What’s actually happened over the last number of years with the inflated grades is you have students who are getting top marks and higher marks - and are still not getting their place because of the grade inflation, because of the fact that there is a lottery in place,” she said.

“It is the case any year that students may not get their course, for whatever reason, but there are more students not getting their course because of the inflation.

“So, I have [decided] this year… to move ahead with this to make sure that this impacts students in as minimal a way as possible.

“But also, we know that there are additional courses being put on,” she added. Minister McEntee also pointed out there are supports within schools for students stressed generally during the exam period. 

The 2025 Leaving Cert exams run through until June 24 with results to be issued on August 22.