The Leaving Cert results are available on Wednesday, online, by post or in schools.

External candidates who registered individually with the State Examinations Commission (SEC) had the option of receiving their results by post on Wednesday at their home address.

The SEC will make all Leaving Cert results available online from noon on Wednesday on examinations.ie. To access the result online, a student or their representative will need both their Leaving Cert examination number and an individual pin code supplied to them earlier this year by their school. Anyone missing either number can secure it through their own school today or tomorrow.

Having observed this process over many years as guidance counsellor in Oatlands College in Dublin, I know a pattern of behaviour on the part of parents and students recurs annually.

Given work commitments, many parents are unable to accompany their sons and daughters to their schools. Where they do attend, they stay in their cars, while their son or daughter enters the school to get their results.

Most schools announce in advance what time they will be distributing the results, in individual envelopes to each candidate, usually between 9am and 10am. Prior to that, the school principal will have visited the local post office before 8am to collect the envelope from the SEC.

Each principal, along with the deputy principal and guidance counsellor, will review each student’s results to identify anyone whose results may cause disappointment, upset or distress. This enables teachers to approach these particular students after they open their envelope and put the outcome in context. They will also be able to advise about all options open.

CAO offers

It is very often students who have secured very high grades, translating into CAO points scores of 500-plus, who can be most distressed at having fallen 10 or more CAO points short of their target.

Once the results are out, the universal question on every student’s lips is what the CAO points requirements are likely to be for their first and subsequent college choices?

Based on the final numbers provided by the CAO in July, The Irish Times published its predictions regarding the general movements in points requirement for 2016 entry. But the specific requirements for each individual course will not be known until Monday, August 22nd, when the CAO makes the third round of offers of places in the current year.

The CAO has already offered places to mature applicants (over 23 years of age) in early July, and to students applying on the basis of further education awards at the beginning of August.

For some strange reason, the CAO refers to next Monday’s offers as the first round, because it is for those applicants who did the Leaving Cert in 2016. This seems to imply a lesser status to the 40 per cent of CAO applicants each year not taking the Leaving Cert in the current year.

Joy and disappointment

Upon receiving their results envelope, students almost invariably move away from their peers to open it and read its contents. If they are happy with what they discover, they quickly rejoin the group to relay their good news. If they are disappointed, they tend to attempt to leave quietly. It is at that stage I as a guidance counsellor will approach them for a quiet chat.

If I am to give one piece of advice to both parents and students prior to receiving the Leaving Cert results on Wednesday morning, it would be that there is no such thing as a bad result.

There are progression opportunities available to every Leaving Cert student. Securing a CAO place is by no means the appropriate pathway to follow for every young person. There are excellent, totally appropriate, further education options suitable for thousands of school leavers, which in many cases will lead them back into the CAO system a year from now, academically stronger and more prepared to take on the challenges of college life.

Furthermore, there is now a whole series of new apprenticeships in insurance, accounting, ICT and financial services among others, available to school leavers. The options for young people are endless, so don’t be disheartened whatever the result on Wednesday. Every student’s result should be a cause for celebration.

The Irish Times will operate an online helpline service, staffed by highly qualified guidance counsellors from Wednesday morning until the middle of next week.

They will answer questions from any parent or student regarding either the consequences of an exam result or a CAO college offer or non-offer.

I will be writing advice columns daily in The Irish Times from this Thursday until the end of next week, to support our readers and their sons and daughters in navigating their way through this important decision time in their lives.