CAO points for this year's Leaving Certificate students are set to be broadly unchanged from last year, when they dropped to their lowest-ever level.
Career experts say there appears to be little prospect that points levels will move upward for the vast majority of courses, despite the increase of more than 2,500 in the total number applying to the CAO this year.
This is because most of the increase comes from mature applicants (those aged 23 or over) and those who secured further education qualifications after their Leaving Cert.
One expert said last night: "This group are not offering CAO points and so they are not in real competition with school leavers. Some areas will be up and some down but the overall CAO picture will be broadly unchanged from last year."
The wider choice of courses - the CAO is providing an additional 70 courses this year - will also "soften" the points requirements, according to career experts.
Said one: "It is a simple question of supply and demand. There are more students, but there are also vastly more courses."
Careers experts say the only factor that could propel points upward would be better than expected Leaving Cert results. While the numbers securing high points has increased dramatically over the past two decades, the rise in grades year on year tends to be marginal.
This year, more than 65,000 applied to the CAO. But only 56,700 of this group have CAO points based on their Leaving Cert results. Among CAO applicants, only 41,000 are Leaving Cert students who took the exam for the first time in June, one of the lowest such figures on record.
Of those applying this year, more than 8,000 are mature applicants.
A further 11,000 have progressed through the post-Leaving Cert further education programmes. One careers expert said these applicants are not in real competition with the Leaving Cert class of 2007.
Last year, several commentators said that the traditional "points race" was over after points fell to a new low.
With the notable exception of medical-related courses, points were down last year across a broad range of courses in arts, business, science and social science.
The overall situation is expected to be in line with last year, when about 50 per cent of all students seeking a place on a Level 8 (higher degree course) secured their first choice.
The situation was even better for those seeking places on Levels 6 and 7 (ordinary degree courses), where some 75 per cent secured their top option.
This year's Leaving Cert results will be published next Wednesday. A week today, admission officers from all the third-level colleges will meet to consider the supply and demand figures for more than 800 courses.
While this number has been declining, the range of courses on offer from the CAO has increased from less than 100 two decades ago to more than 800 this year.
In a reversal of the situation two decades ago, there is intense competition between the various third-level colleges for students to fill their places.
