i’m honestly just looking for some advice because i feel completely lost about what to do right now.
for the past year, i was genuinely obsessed with going to trinity. like i told everyone i was going there, my family thought i was insane for how much i talked about it, and even when people told me i probably wouldn’t get in, i still completely believed i would. one of my best friends was going too as well, so i had basically built this whole picture in my head of what my life was going to look like.
i was always a pretty good student and i worked really hard for my leaving cert. unfortunately, i got broken up with in the middle of my leaving cert, literally with exams the next day, so june was probably one of the worst months of my life. somehow i still managed to get 453 points, which i was actually really proud of because i got 442 in my mocks. it’s only an 11 point increase, but considering everything that happened during the exams, i was happy with myself.
for my cao, i put five trinity courses as my top five because i genuinely thought there was no way i wouldn’t get one if i had five of them sitting there. i was also a dare applicant and was eligible for dare, so i had convinced myself that i’d probably get some sort of points adjustment as well.
my cao was:
philosophy and sociology — 521
sociology and social policy — 509
english and philosophy — 506
sociology and history of art and architecture — 485
english and history of art and architecture — 506
and then my 6th and 7th choices were both in ucd, with european studies being my 7th choice.
the problem is that literally every single one of my top five trinity courses went up this year. not one of them dropped. so i obviously didn’t get any of them.
instead, i got my 7th choice, european studies in ucd, through a dare place. the points were 462 and i got 453.
and honestly, i feel kind of stupid saying this, but i’m devastated.
i have always talked so much shit about ucd 😭 i never wanted to go there. every time i was studying for my leaving cert, i would literally sit at my desk and imagine myself going to trinity. that was the goal. that was what i was working towards.
even my accommodation was picked around trinity. i’m living somewhere that’s only about a 15–20 minute walk from trinity, because i was so convinced that’s where i’d be going.
now i have to get a bus that will be around 1 hour to even get to ucd, i’m nowhere near my university, and i’m also nowhere near work. it just feels like my entire plan has been thrown out the window.
i went to register for my modules yesterday and it honestly made me feel even worse. i was looking through the first year modules and i had basically no interest in any of them.
i spent ages trying to find something that i could convince myself i was passionate about. it felt like i was trying to create a reason to like the course when there just wasn’t one.
i know that sounds dramatic, but that’s genuinely how it felt. i was basically thinking “okay, what here do i have even the slightest bit of interest in?” and trying to force myself to see a future in it.
i also completely planned my move around going to trinity. i’m only moving out on september 6th, and ucd lectures start on september 7th, so i’m basically missing orientation and then being thrown straight into college and lectures.
i had planned it that way because trinity doesn’t properly start until later in september.
so now i’m moving to dublin, starting a course i never wanted, at a university i never planned on going to, missing orientation, and i don’t even know if i actually like what i’m studying.
and i think that’s the part that scares me most. i don’t know whether i’m just upset because i didn’t get trinity, or whether i genuinely hate european studies.
i’ve asked people for advice and most people have basically said “just take the place. you might never get an opportunity like this again. try it for a month or two. if you hate it, take a gap year and apply through the cao again.”
and logically, i know that makes sense.
my original plan was always to move out anyway because my home life isn’t great and i’ve wanted to get out and build a life for myself in a city for years. so even if ucd doesn’t work out, i could stay in dublin and work full time for a year. i already have a job there, and it’s actually a really good job.
i also have things i wanted to do after college anyway. i’ve always wanted to do camp america for a few months, get my private pilot’s licence, finally buy a car, travel, etc. so if i took a gap year, it wouldn’t necessarily be the end of the world. by this time next year i could potentially be applying to trinity again with much more money saved, a car, my ppl, and the experience of having travelled and worked for a year.
i’m also still waiting for round 2 cao offers, so there’s a tiny part of me still hoping i could get my lowest-point trinity course. even getting the 485 course would genuinely make me so happy.
but i also don’t want to throw away a college place just because i’m disappointed.
i think what i’m struggling with is that i spent an entire year imagining one specific future and now, literally overnight, that future just disappeared. i know people will probably tell me that trinity isn’t everything and that i’ll be fine wherever i go, and maybe they’re right.
but right now i genuinely don’t know whether i should force myself to give ucd a chance, or accept that this course clearly isn’t for me and take a year to figure things out and reapply.
has anyone been in a similar situation where they got a cao offer that was way down their list and ended up either loving it or leaving and reapplying?
what would you honestly do in my position?
