Many students who pinned all their hopes on today's round of offers will be facing disappointment. The second round shouldn't be seen as another bite of the cherry, because really it's nothing like the first round. The offers made today represent the small number of places not taken up by the first round of candidates. A quick glace at the first and second round cut-off points for the last few years show, particularly on the degree list, only a tiny drop in points, if any drop at all.

Feeling let down if you don't get your first choice is perfectly understandable, particularly if you worked hard for that degree course, but before you rush to repeat, sit down and take stock of what you have.

Some 75 per cent of students were made offers in the first CAO round. This means you were probably offered something from your list and hopefully you accepted it before the closing date last Wednesday. If you put the course on your list in the first place, presumably you did so for good reason. If it wasn't exactly your first choice, perhaps it was a similar course, or even a course of the exact same title, but from the diploma/cert list rather than the degree. If you were offered a cert in electronic engineering in Galway-Mayo IT, when you really wanted degree in electronic engineering in NUI Galway, you should realise that they could ultimately lead to the same qualification and the same employment prospects.

Take a look at your course in the CAO handbook. The qualification column will have the initial qualification you applied for marked in bold, denoted by the letters CT if it's a certificate course. If that is followed by a +DP and a +DG this means that it is possible to graduate from your cert to a diploma and eventually to a degree.

The days of static courses and qualifications are long gone. Now, once you get your first foothold on the higher education ladder the opportunities for progress are almost limitless.

"Add-on courses are one of the most significant development in the structure of third level in the last 10 years," Cork IT registrar Brendan Goggins says. "They have very clear routes of progression giving those with the interest and commitment the opportunity to achieve."

A degree achieved through progression from a diploma is "absolutely every bit as good" as an ab-initio degree, says Goggins, and is just as highly respected in the workplace. "Employers value add-on degrees in two ways: as qualifications in their own rights with equal standing to any other degree and as a means of allowing people already in employment to continue on to study."

The flexibility of the add-on route is one of its greatest benefits, he says. Students can leave college and go into employment after gaining their certificate and return at a later time to get their diploma or degree. It's also becoming easier to earn qualifications on a part-time basis while continuing in employment.

The progression route does involve hard work. Students are by no means guaranteed a place on the next stage and must achieve a merit in their diploma to be considered for the degree programme. A grade of 55 per cent in the diploma will get you a merit, so it is an achievable mark and, Goggins says, a lot of students find that they benefit from having their progress monitored in this way.

"People will take certs and diplomas as their preferred option even when they have a degree offer. A cert or diploma is a qualification in its own right. If there are clear routes of progression people can be quite taken by the idea of gaining qualifications as they progress on to their degree."

Students who have accepted an offer that wasn't too high up on their list may now find they're embarking on a course they don't know an awful lot about. If your research was a little sketchy when you made your CAO choices, it's important now to find out as much as possible about the course. Check out the college prospectus, available from the college admissions office and the web.

If you need further advice, your old school guidance teacher or your new college guidance counsellor will be able to help. "This is a key decision," Goggins says, "and it has to be very well informed. You have time to get the information and there are so many people willing to help you."

The level of support available and the number of options open to students has never been so good.

When the RTCs (the predecessors of ITs) were emerging in the 1970s, degrees weren't a consideration, Galway-Mayo IT director Gay Corr says. "When these institutions were set up, the main thrust was producing people at technician level through a two-year certificate or a three year diploma."

In the 1980s it became clear RTC students wanted higher qualifications, but, says Corr, there "wasn't a great match" between diplomas and cert courses in RTCs and degrees in universities. "The result was that people got very few exemptions for their diploma and it could take five or six years to earn a degree. A lot of students went to British universities where they got greater degrees of credit for their qualifications."

The option of getting add-on qualifications only became widely available in the 1990s. This year there are more than 200 diploma or cert courses in institutions across the State providing the opportunity to progress on to a degree.

Your desired qualification is set to get all the more attainable with the establishment of the new awarding body HETAC (higher education and training award). HETAC, which came into being in June, aims to streamline access, transfer and progression through higher education and it should also increase the number of places available through the validation of new courses.

Even if you received no suitable offer today or in the last round, your dealings with the CAO may not yet be over. Vacant places on a number of courses that lead on to a degree qualification are already available through the CAO. This means if you have no offer or if you don't want the course you were offered you may apply for these places.

However, it's important to note that you will still be subject to the minimum entry requirements for the course, so if you failed maths you will be unable to apply for a vacant place requiring maths for matriculation.