Professor Emer Smyth:

It is a good point. There is variation between schools in the type of guidance provided. All schools appear to be squeezed for time regarding guidance. It is very much concentrated on sixth year and the CAO application procedures. There is not necessarily the time to go into other options, but some schools do so. Anecdotally, some schools near the Border do so. There is a case for broader access to guidance because a lot of decisions, or even soft decisions, are made well before sixth year when they get formal guidance.

While it would be useful to have a website, there are guidelines out there - the British Academy has an interesting information booklet - but I think that is probably not going to be completely user-friendly. Certainly, if a student is looking to apply to a UK university from Ireland, there is a UCAS tariff score, but a lot of the universities will have their own specifications, and they may say two As and a C for certain courses, say the University of Edinburgh, but that could be a different requirement for a different course in the same university or for different universities. It is very hard to have that tailored approach.