Leaving Cert results: Three charts show how this year's grades are still above the norm

Tomas Doherty

Leaving Cert marks have been bumped up again this year as exam authorities try to phase out grade inflation introduced during the pandemic.

For the fourth year running, a post-marking adjustment has been applied to all exams in order to ensure that the 2025 results are on a par with previous years.

The adjustment is applied on a sliding scale, with a stronger increase for lower grades and less of a boost for grades towards the top.

As a result, grades remain far higher than in pre-pandemic years, with 11.7 per cent awarded H1s, the top grade available.

This compares with pre-pandemic average of 5 to 6 per cent receiving H1 grades.

The extra marks given to students resulted in 52.4 per cent of grades increasing, a significant drop from the 68 per cent of grades affected last year and 71 per cent in 2023.

The State Examinations Commission said the post-marking adjustments this year resulted in a “modest reduction” in the aggregate Leaving Cert results, and are now 5.9 percentage points above 2019 levels on average.

The class of 2025 is also the largest group to sit the Leaving Cert exams for the first time (excluding those repeating) at 60,937. This is an increase of 4,146 or 7.3 per cent on the 56,791 who sat the examination in 2024.

How all of this impacts the Central Applications Office (CAO) points requirements will now be the main concern for those receiving their results on Friday.

The continued high grades will probably see third-level institutions use random selection to choose between top candidates in high-demand courses when CAO offers are issued on Wednesday.

Last year saw some candidates who received maximum points miss out on highly sought-after courses due to the use of such lottery systems.