Good news on Law and Business courses

There is plenty of good news for school-leavers who are keeping faith with disciplines where career prospects have been badly hit by the downturn.

Areas such as Business and Law, as well as constructionrelated courses, have seen a continued steadying, or in many cases a fall-off, in points levels in the wake of the economic crisis.

The collapse in the building and property sector has affected not only construction-related careers such as Architecture, but also the legal world, which had benefited from property conveyancing at the height of the boom.

Students who would have needed in excess of 500 points for entry to courses such as Law or Architecture in 2007 will today get the same place with fewer than 500 points.

In UCD points for Architecture fell slightly to 495 this year from 505 in 2009.

The 2010 points for Law are a mixed bag in terms of ups and downs, with the BCL at UCD at 480*, which, although up from 470 last year, is down from 505 in 2007.

The UCD Business and Law programme is also up five points to 485.

At UCC, Law has remained the same at 485, while at TCD, it is down five to 515*.

However, TCD’s other three big Law programmes are up, while BCL and Arts in National University of Ireland, Maynooth is down by 15 points to 450.

The points for many Business courses are down on last year, although TCD’s popular Business, Economic and Social Studies (BESS) is up to 480*, while its Business Studies and French crept up to 505.

UCD’s Commerce stayed steady at 450, while National University of Ireland, Galway saw a five-point rise for its Commerce programme, bringing it to 365.

Commerce at UCC is down by 20 points to 430. Business programmes at the University of Limerick performed well, with increases of between five and 20 points in the Bachelor of Business Studies (BBS) with French, German and Japanese options.

Points for the general BBS programme remain at 385.

In a record year for CAO applications, it was clear from the statistics that students were not pursuing careers in Law and construction-related courses in the same way they were a few years ago.

Demand for Law was down from 2,495 to 2,301 since 2008, and in the same two-year period, demand for built environment Level 8, honours degree programmes dropped from 552 to 319.

- Katherine Donnelly