Seven of the top 10 feeder schools for TCD are fee-paying, writes Sean Flynn, Education Editor.
The list of main feeder schools for TCD published today is the latest in a series which has been running for four years. What is remarkable is how many of the same schools dominate when it comes to providing first-year undergraduates.
All of the schools which one would regard as the "usual suspects" are again featured strongly. They include the Institute of Education, Blackrock College, Belvedere College, High School, Rathgar, St Andrews and Alexandra College.
Two non-fee-paying schools feature very strongly: the all-Irish Coláiste Iasagain in Stillorgan and Dominican College, Muckcross Park. Both schools also featured prominently in the feeder-school list for UCD, published last month.
The Institute of Education, owned by the so-called "grinds king" Mr Ray Kearns, is the leading feeder school for every university in the Dublin area. Last year, the Leeson Street grind school is though to have generated over €9 million in fees alone. In a sign of its success, it also acquired Bruce College, Dublin, in a multi-million euro deal.
It is thought that some 900 pupils will take the Leaving Cert at the institute next June. In addition, hundreds of pupils from other schools attend evening and weekend tutorials there.
The huge number of students at the institute helps, in part, to explain their strong showing in league tables. Teachers' unions, who bitterly oppose these tables, maintain that many smaller schools are actually performing better when it comes to the percentage of pupils admitted to third level.
Some well-known fee-paying schools do not feature as prominently on the TCD list as one might expect. These include Castleknock College (which sent seven students to TCD this autumn), St Michael's, Ballsbridge (four) and Terenure College (four).
However, these schools may have been more successful in relation to other third-level colleges.
Trinity itself is in the process of major change. A radical reform plan tabled by the provost, Dr John Hegarty, has provoked an angry response from many senior academics.
The original Hegarty plan envisaged a huge reduction in the number of departments and a halving of the number of faculties to just three. In recent months, there have been signals that the changes may be less sweeping in the face of sustained opposition from some of the most venerable figures in the colleges.
Dr Hegarty says the college needs to change in order to compete on an international basis. His critics say Trinity is already widely recognised as a world-class seat of learning, and that change should not be rushed through.
TCD is the only Irish university in the list of the world's top 200, compiled by the Times higher education supplement. It continues to attract record numbers of CAO applicants. Many of its undergraduate courses require very high CAO points.
TCD statement
The information below is a record of the first school in which students sat their Leaving Certificate who entered first year of a full-time undergraduate degree course at Trinity College Dublin in 2004-05.
It details: the name and address, where possible, of the school where appropriate, the total number of new CAO entrants in 2004-05 that sat their Leaving Certificate examination in that school and who registered with Trinity College Dublin in the academic year 2004-05
Only schools from which four or more students attended.
Trinity College is not bound by any errors or omission from the data provided.