The Central Applications Office was founded in January 1976 based in Galway, with nine colleges and universities participating initially.

[1] The CAO then offers places to students who meet the minimum requirements for a course for which they have applied.

[3] Applications for most of these are routed through the CAO, but processed manually by the individual institutions rather than automatically via the points system.

The CAO awards points to students based on their achievements in the Leaving Certificate examination.

If a student has sat the Leaving Certificate examination on more than one occasion, their points are calculated according to their best year's performance.