What to do if you’re not happy with your child’s CAO choices – it’s not too late
Your child submitted their CAO application in February. Now it May is around the corner, they’ve sat their mocks, and something feels off. The good news: there is still time to change things.
It is a feeling many parents know. Your son or daughter spent weeks wrestling with their CAO application, pressed submit in February, and you breathed a collective sigh of relief. Done.
Then something shifted. Maybe the mock results came back differently than expected. Maybe a work experience placement in April changed their mind about the career they’d been aiming at. Maybe they simply sat with the list for a few months and realised it doesn’t feel right anymore.
Whatever the reason, you’re here in May wondering whether anything can be done about it. The answer is yes -and there’s more room to manoeuvre than most families realise.
The CAO Change of Mind: what it is and how it works
The Central Applications Office runs a free facility every year that allows applicants to revise their course choices after the February deadline. It’s called the Change of Mind facility, and for 2026 the key dates are:
| Opens 5 May 2026 at noon | Closes 1 July 2026 at 5pm | Cost Free -no charge |
During this window, your child can log into their CAO account and add courses, remove courses, or change the order of their preferences -as many times as they like, right up to the 5pm deadline on 1 July. Each new submission replaces the previous one, so the last version they save before 1 July is what the CAO holds on file.
There is no fee and no penalty for using it. It exists precisely for this situation.
Around 90% of Leaving Cert students make changes to their original CAO choices between May and July every year. Your child would not be unusual -they would be in the majority.
What can be changed – and what can’t
The Change of Mind facility is flexible, but it has some important limits. Understanding these before your child logs in will save frustration.
| What can be changed ✓ Add new courses Any standard (non-restricted) course can be added, even if it wasn’t on the original list. ✓ Remove courses Any course can be removed from either the Level 8 or Level 7/6 list. ✓ Reorder preferences The order of choices can be changed completely -this is one of the most important uses of this facility. ✓ Change as often as needed There is no limit on how many times your child can revise their choices before 1 July. |
| What cannot be changed using this facility ⚠ Restricted courses -courses requiring a portfolio, audition, interview, or additional assessment cannot be added after 1 March. These had to be on the original application. ⚠ Mature applicants -if your child is applying as a mature student, individual colleges may have restrictions. Check directly with each college’s admissions office before making changes. ⚠ Introducing a new restricted course -with one narrow exception: if the restricted course uses the exact same assessment procedures as a course already on the application. Contact the relevant college before attempting this. |
Before touching the CAO – the conversation worth having first
The Change of Mind facility is a practical tool. But before your child logs in and starts rearranging courses, it’s worth pausing to understand why the current list doesn’t feel right – because that determines what a better list would actually look like.
There are a few distinct situations, and each calls for a different response.
If the mock results changed the picture
Mock results that come in significantly higher or lower than expected are the most common trigger for a Change of Mind. The instinct is often to immediately move high-points courses up the list if results were strong, or to pull back to ‘safer’ options if results were disappointing.
Both instincts are understandable but worth examining carefully. The CAO advises students not to change the order of preferences based on assumptions about points -it’s a risk to move a genuinely preferred course down simply because you’re worried about the points. The purpose of the CAO system is to list courses in the order you actually want them, not in the order you think you’ll get them.
The right question: Has the mock result changed what your child actually wants -or just what they think they can get? These are different questions with different answers.
If work experience or a course visit changed their mind
This is one of the most legitimate reasons to use the Change of Mind facility. A month of genuine exposure to a career or industry is worth far more information than anything a prospectus can offer. If your child spent three weeks in a hospital and realised nursing isn’t what they imagined – or if they visited a college open day and discovered a course they hadn’t considered – the Change of Mind is exactly the right response.
Use it. That’s what it’s for.
If they’ve simply changed their mind about what they want
This happens more often than parents expect, and there is nothing wrong with it. A 17- or 18-year-old who made their CAO choices in January and feels differently in May is responding normally to a period of significant development and new information.
The more useful question isn’t ‘why did they change their mind?’ -it’s ‘do they now have a clearer sense of what they actually want?’ If the new direction feels more considered and more genuinely theirs, trust that. If it feels reactive or panicked, it’s worth a longer conversation before making changes.
If they’re not sure what they want at all
This is the hardest situation – and the most common. Your child may have got through the February deadline by putting down a list that seemed reasonable, without strong conviction about any of it.
The Change of Mind facility can help by letting them reorder or expand the list. But it can’t solve the underlying problem, which is that they don’t yet have enough self-knowledge to make a confident choice. That’s a different kind of work – and it’s worth doing before 1 July, not after.
The practical steps -how to actually use the facility
Once your child has had the conversation about what they actually want, the mechanics of using the Change of Mind facility are straightforward.
- Log into their CAO account at cao.ie using their CAO number and password.
- Go to ‘My Application’ and navigate to the Change of Mind section -it will be visible from 5 May.
- Review the current Level 8 and Level 7/6 lists separately. Changes to each list are independent of each other.
- Make additions, removals, or reorderings. Save each change – the last saved version before 1 July at 5pm is what counts.
- Check the Statement of Application Record they receive by email after making changes, to confirm everything looks correct.
- If in doubt, make the change again. There is no limit on revisions.
| One critical rule to remember When you submit a Change of Mind, it replaces all previous choices in that category (Level 8, or Level 7/6). If your child only wants to reorder two courses and keep the rest the same, they must re-enter the full list -not just the two they’re moving. This is the most common mistake. Double-check the full list before saving. |
The harder question behind the CAO list
Helping your child navigate the Change of Mind facility is the practical task. But there’s a larger question sitting underneath all of this, and it’s the one that’s actually keeping most parents awake.
How do you help your child make a choice that’s genuinely right for them – not one that’s driven by points pressure, peer choices, or what they think they’re supposed to want?
The CAO system asks teenagers to rank their preferences. It doesn’t ask them to understand themselves first. And without that foundation – without some clear picture of their own aptitudes, interests, and working style – the list is always going to feel like guesswork.
This is something that can still be addressed before 1 July. It doesn’t require months of reflection. It requires the right questions, asked properly.
A validated aptitude and interest assessment – the kind that maps how your child actually thinks and what genuinely motivates them against real career pathways – gives families something concrete to work with. Instead of debating opinions about which course sounds better, you’re looking at data about who your child is and where they’re likely to thrive.
It doesn’t remove the decision. But it makes the decision significantly less of a guess.
“The best list is the one that reflects who your child actually is -not who they think they should be.”
Want to give your child something more to go on?
CareerFit gives every student a personalised report that identifies their top career matches based on validated aptitude and interest assessments. It covers over 1,273 career paths, aligns with CAO, PLC, and apprenticeship routes, and explains specifically why each option is or isn’t a fit for your child.
For families approaching the Change of Mind deadline, it’s one of the most useful things a student can do in the next few weeks. It gives the conversation a grounded starting point -which tends to make both the discussion and the final decision considerably easier.
View a sample report at careerfit.com/sample-report
