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Best colleges for actuarial science?

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What colleges are highly ranked for their actuarial science program?
If you attended college for actuarial science, where did you study? What did you think of the program there?

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Arthur’s Answer

Selecting a college can be a very daunting task. Knowing that you want to major in Actuarial Science is a huge help. My son recently went through the exact same search and used several sources to narrow down his selection - he applied to 6 colleges.
College Board offers a fairly extensive search capability. This link will find colleges Actuarial Science Programs: https://collegesearch.collegeboard.org/filters?mc=Actuarial_Science
Another great resource that we used extensively is the Society of Actuaries page: https://www.soa.org/institutions/. They rate schools with several levels. During our search, we focused on CAE, which is the highest rating, and UCAP-AC, which ensures that the college covers at least the first 4 SOA exams.
Among our favorites that are fairly affordable state schools are Appalachian State University in Boone, NC and Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN.
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Ken’s Answer

It does not really matter where you go to school. The important things are getting to know yourself to know which area of acturial science, which is very broad and has many applications, to choose (based on your personality traits), work hard to get the best grades, and do well at developing and maintaining interpersonal (vs computer based) networking contacts and support, which will benefit you throughout your education/career journey.


Getting to know yourself and how your personality traits relate to people involved in various career opportunities is very important in your decision making process. During my many years in Human Resources and College Recruiting, I ran across too many students who had skipped this very important step and ended up in a job situation which for which they were not well suited. Selecting a career area is like buying a pair of shoes. First you have to be properly fitted for the correct size, and then you need to try on and walk in the various shoe options to determine which is fits the best and is most comfortable for you to wear. Following are some important steps which I developed during my career which have been helpful to many .

Ken recommends the following next steps:

The first step is to take an interest and aptitude test and have it interpreted by your school counselor to see if you share the personality traits necessary to enter the field. You might want to do this again upon entry into college, as the interpretation might differ slightly due to the course offering of the school. However, do not wait until entering college, as the information from the test will help to determine the courses that you take in high school. Too many students, due to poor planning, end up paying for courses in college which they could have taken for free in high school.
Next, when you have the results of the testing, talk to the person at your high school and college who tracks and works with graduates to arrange to talk to, visit, and possibly shadow people doing what you think that you might want to do, so that you can get know what they are doing and how they got there. Here are some tips: ## http://www.wikihow.com/Network ## ## https://www.themuse.com/advice/nonawkward-ways-to-start-and-end-networking-conversations ## ## https://www.themuse.com/advice/4-questions-to-ask-your-network-besides-can-you-get-me-a-job?ref=carousel-slide-1 ##
Locate and attend meetings of professional associations to which people who are doing what you think that you want to do belong, so that you can get their advice. These associations may offer or know of intern, coop, shadowing, and scholarship opportunities. These associations are the means whereby the professionals keep abreast of their career area following college and advance in their career. You can locate them by asking your school academic advisor, favorite teachers, and the reference librarian at your local library. Here are some tips: ## https://www.careeronestop.org/BusinessCenter/Toolkit/find-professional-associations.aspx?&frd=true ## ## https://www.themuse.com/advice/9-tips-for-navigating-your-first-networking-event ##
It is very important to express your appreciation to those who help you along the way to be able to continue to receive helpful information and to create important networking contacts along the way. Here are some good tips: ## https://www.themuse.com/advice/the-informational-interview-thank-you-note-smart-people-know-to-send?ref=recently-published-2 ## ## https://www.themuse.com/advice/3-tips-for-writing-a-thank-you-note-thatll-make-you-look-like-the-best-candidate-alive?bsft_eid=7e230cba-a92f-4ec7-8ca3-2f50c8fc9c3c&bsft_pid=d08b95c2-bc8f-4eae-8618-d0826841a284&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily_20171020&utm_source=blueshift&utm_content=daily_20171020&bsft_clkid=edfe52ae-9e40-4d90-8e6a-e0bb76116570&bsft_uid=54658fa1-0090-41fd-b88c-20a86c513a6c&bsft_mid=214115cb-cca2-4aec-aa86-92a31d371185&bsft_pp=2 ##
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Mark’s Answer

Some Schools that have good actuarial science programs:

University of Wisconsin
University of Michigan
University of Connecticut
Bryant
Penn State University
University of Iowa
Drake
University of Nebraska
Georgia State
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