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About the CourseCompass CAO course directory
This directory is a searchable record of higher education courses that Irish students apply for through the CAO. It holds more than 1,200 live courses from 26 institutions, including the universities, the technological universities and the specialist colleges of art, education, music and business. For each course we store the CAO code, the awarding institution, the NFQ level, the campus location, the duration and a plain English description of what the programme actually covers, so you can compare programmes side by side instead of reading a dozen prospectuses.
The search box accepts ordinary language rather than keywords alone. You can ask for "business in Dublin", "computing level 8" or "law but not solicitor" and the query is interpreted into filters for institution, level, location, subject area and terms to exclude. You can then adjust any of those filters by hand. Nothing you type is stored against an account, and you do not need to register to browse.
What do NFQ levels mean for the courses listed here?
Every course carries a level from Ireland's National Framework of Qualifications. Level 8 is an honours bachelor degree and accounts for the large majority of entries in the directory. Level 7 is an ordinary bachelor degree, usually three years and often taught at a technological university, with a route onto a Level 8 add-on year afterwards. Level 6 is a higher certificate, normally two years, and it is the shortest higher education entry point available through the CAO.
Levels matter because they set what comes next. Professional registration in medicine, law, teaching and engineering is tied to Level 8, while many industry roles are perfectly reachable from Level 7 or Level 6 with experience. If the terminology is new to you, the education glossary defines every level, along with terms such as deferral, exemption and add-on year, and the NFQ levels guide compares Level 7 and Level 8 in detail.
How does CourseCompass match students to courses?
Searching works well when you already know roughly what you want. Most students do not, which is why the directory sits alongside Course Compass, our matching assessment. It profiles your interests using the RIASEC model, records your subject strengths and your personality preferences, then scores courses in this same database against that profile. The output is a shortlist of best-fit courses with a written explanation of why each one appeared, which is far more useful in a guidance conversation than a list of titles.
Matching never overrides the entry rules. If a course requires a laboratory science, a language, a portfolio, an interview or HPAT, that requirement is held against the course record and respected in the match.
How often is the course data refreshed, and from which sources?
Course records are reviewed on a rolling cycle, with a full audit before the CAO application window opens and another pass once offers are issued, because that is when institutions confirm changes to titles, codes and requirements. Our data currency page documents the schedule, the last review date and how corrections are handled.
We work from primary sources: the Central Applications Office for codes and entry requirements, Quality and Qualifications Ireland for NFQ verification, Qualifax as the national learners' database, and the institutions' own course pages for module and placement detail. Where a source disagrees with an institution's own listing, the institution wins and the record is flagged for review.