One Leaving Certificate student says the points system needs to be updated in line with public demand.
Ciaran McCann was one of many students around the country who received a CAO offer on Tuesday.
However not everyone was happy, as grade inflation and an increase in applications pushed more courses than ever above the 600 points mark.
Four courses - Dentistry in UCC; Management Science and Information Systems Studies and Dental Science at Trinity; and Economics and Finance at UCD - hit the maximum points threshold due to demand.
Over a dozen others have points requirements in excess of 600.
Random selection has seen many deserving students miss out.
Ciaran (18) was one of those who did not get offered his first choice. He told Newstalk Breakfast this was down to pure luck of the draw.
"The course that I wanted was PPES in Trinity - it's Politics, Philosophy, Economics and Social Studies.
"It was 613 points, which was five H1s and a H2, and I was able to get that points [sic].
"But unfortunately there was a raffle system for who got in - so not everyone who achieved those points actually got into the course because of the limited amount of spaces.
"Instead of getting my first course, despite getting all the requirements and doing as well as I could have, I just failed to get in off of a dice roll and got my second course instead."
But Ciaran says the second round of CAO offers could still give him options.
"I have a bit of an out with second round offers: if someone happens to not take that course up, if they decide they don't want to do it anymore, I could get that course in the next week perhaps.
"But I'm probably going to end up going to a different course that I don't really want to do.
"I don't really connect with it as well as I do with PPES, it's a course that I wanted since the start of fifth year.
"It's always been my number one, and it feels really bad to miss out on that just off of pure chance."
Ciaran says missing out despite getting the points 'floored' him, and the system needs to change.
"I was just stunned I didn't get it with the second highest possible Leaving Cert you can get.
"It floors you, really, it's hard to describe the feeling.
"I know people who got 625 points, did the absolute best they could do, and still failed to get into their course just cause of randomness.
"The courses need to update with the desires of the public: if there's lots of people going for medicine, you need to make up new spaces for medicine because you can't just let people fall off of no fault of their own.
"It's just not fair to the students".
