Our LC Results: Crunched!

For an assignment this important, namely an analysis of the Leaving Certificate Results of the St. Conleth’s Class of 2024, the CEO thought our usual debonair doggerel could use some support from two real pros: our Guidance Counsellor Gordon Weldon and our Data Czar Richie Morris. After digesting their two reports, we almost feel ready to tackle OL JC Maths, ourselves… almost!

Never mind Churchill’s infamous quote about their veracity: we believe in statistics! Let’s risk bringing back nightmares from your own maths education and start with a simple lesson which is essential to data crunching, an understanding of the ‘three averages’: the mean, the median and the mode.

The mean is the “average” you’re used to, where you add up all the numbers and then divide by the number of numbers.
The median is the “middle” value in the list of numbers. To find the median, your numbers have to be listed in numerical order from smallest to largest, and you pick the middle one in the list.
The mode is the single value that occurs most often.

This little chart reveals the Conlethian advantage across these most essential ‘averages’:

And we have also charted our 75/50/25 % ‘cut-offs’ and compared them to the national average:

The numbers speak for themselves but when the common refrain is that ‘everyone did well because of the Covid bounce’ it is important to qualify that with ‘Yes, everyone did well… but we did better!‘

Now, after those colourful but admittedly basic graphics (which we proudly drew up, ourselves, on MSPaint) we are going to bring in the big boys and their more professional data toys. (Apparently, Messrs. Weldon and Morris had help from a friend named HAL…)

On the following graph, St. Conleth’s is the ‘local’ (in orange).

And for people who like that other type of graph (we’re orangey, again):

Maybe a few words (and yes, a few numbers) about a few particular subjects are also in order? We outperformed the national averages for top grades in all our subjects (and by some considerable margin) but we must mention French and Spanish, specifically as our statistical advantage in these subjects was literally (okay, not literally, but you know what we mean…) off the charts! Across the nation, 16% of French Students earned an H1, while 70% of Ms. Crowley and Mr. Baneham’s students earned the top grade. And in Spanish, nationally, 16% of Students earned an H1, while 52% of Ms. Clarke’s and Ms. Alonso’s students earned the top grade! And, in all our subjects, there was also a ‘hidden’ advantage in our results: a much higher percentage of our students take the Higher Level exam than the national average.

Now, let’s bring in the people, because that is what St. Conleth’s is all about! Where did our young ladies and gentlemen of the Class of 2024 go when they left the doors of 28 Clyde Road (and after a short stop in The Horse Show House)? At last count, 10 of our class of 42 were attending Trinity College and at least 17 were in UCD (nineteen-year-olds don’t always answer emails!). And they are studying Medicine, Engineering, City Planning, Law, English and Cigar-Smoking (BESS) amidst other things… Now, that’s 64% of the class attending those two prestigious institutions which often top the ‘preferred destinations’ list but several of our students secured their first choice elsewhere: our more artistically and technically minded graduates opted for third level education at places like TUD, BIMM and IADT. And one of our best scholars, Turlough Dineen, is currently studying Classics amidst the dreaming spires of Cambridge University!

Now, after all those numbers and percentages, the real important stuff: obviously, there is always a range of results and myriad paths forward in life.  St. Conleth’s recognises the value of those CAO points but we also know there is much more to the education and development of children into young men and women. We congratulate all of the Class of 2024 for working to the best of their abilities and responding so well to challenges, including those posed by the Covid contingencies.  We are proud of them as scholars but, more importantly, for what well-rounded ladies and gentlemen they turned out to be. We wish them all well at university and beyond and remind them that the door of No. 28 Clyde Road is always open to them!

by Charles Latvis