Recruiting and Advising Challenges in Actuarial Science

Abstract

Some challenges to increasing actuarial science program size through recruiting broadly among potential students are identified. Possible solutions depend on the structures and culture of the school. Up to three student cohorts may result from partition of potential students by the levels of academic progress before program entry: students entering college for the first time, undergraduate transfers, and baccalaureate degree holders. Serving full-time students from these diverse academic levels—and also part-time students who may be from any of the cohorts—involves adaptations such as added recruiting methods, modified curriculum sequencing, extra one-on-one advising, and adjusted professional development activities. As a starting point for faculty dialogue, this paper presents some data and gives references and discussion points.

Keywords:

• Recruiting
• advising
• actuarial exams
• job rankings
• CAS
• SOA
• FTIC
• STEM
• VEE

Notes

¹ An approximation of the “average number of exams passed per graduate” is made by taking the quotient of “average number per year of students passing actuarial exams in the last 3 years” and “average number per year of students graduation from the actuarial program in the last 3 years”.

² An approximation of the “internship or work-study experiences per graduate” is calculated by (“average number of students per year who participated in summer actuarial internship” + “who participated in actuarial work-study program”) / “average number per year of students graduation from the actuarial program in the last 3 years”.

³ The six smallest programs, reporting fewer than three average graduates, were not included; one of the larger schools, University of Calgary, is not included because it is the only such which shows the number of graduates but not the features; this may be a reporting or recording anomaly. See [7].

⁴ These programs are chosen from the SOA’s list of schools [7]; type of institution is from “The Carnegie Classification of Institution of Higher Education” [9]. Three state universities (Research Universities, very high research activities) report different actuarial science program homes: as a department with statistics, in the mathematics department, and in the business school. Two of them are Centers of Actuarial Excellence. One of the two smaller programs is at a private college, and the other pubic; one is classified Undergraduate Advanced program and the other Undergraduate Introductory program.

⁵ In the programs of the authors, there are students from all three groups. The program of two of the authors (with 35 average yearly graduates, in the middle size grouping of Table 1 at the time it was reported) had 191 total Fall 2013 students and reports from above cohorts (159, 25, 7). (There are (144, 13, 6), respectively, from the 163 full-time students and (15, 12, 1) from the 28 part-time students.) The program of the other author (reporting three, in the group with fewest graduates of Table 1 at the time it was reported) had 18 total Spring 2014 students with cohort representation (10, 7, 1); there were 14 (8, 5, 1) full-time students and four part-timers (2, 2, 0).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bettye Anne Case

Bettye Anne Case is the Olga Larson Professor of Mathematics at Florida State University. She earned a B.S. from the University of Alabama, an M. S. from Duke University, and a Ph.D. (Mathematics) from the University of Alabama. She was the founding Coordinator of Actuarial Science at Florida State University in 1993. Prior to that, she directed the work of graduate teaching assistants – including Steve Paris as graduate student. More recently in the department, she was Associate Chair for Graduate Studies; in that capacity she admitted and initially advised Michelle Guan.

Yuanying Michelle Guan

Yuanying Michelle Guan is an Assistant Professor in Department of Mathematics and Actuarial Science at Indiana University Northwest. She earned a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from Peking University, and a Ph.D. in Financial Mathematics from Florida State University. She was a graduate actuarial teaching assistant at FSU before taking her current position at IUN. A Distinguished Teaching Assistant at FSU, Michelle Guan had a special assignment to support the actuarial program, supervised by Steve Paris. She worked with the tutorial and, her final summer, co-taught with Paris a section of MAP 4170, the interest theory based “FM” exam-related course.

Stephen Paris

Stephen Paris is Coordinator of Actuarial Science at Florida State University. He earned a B.S. in Mathematics from Louisiana Tech University, an M.S in Mathematics from Florida State University, and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Louisiana State University. He was a mathematics professor at The University of Louisiana at Monroe (formerly Northeast Louisiana University) for several years before joining the retirement practice at Towers Watson (Legacy Watson Wyatt) in Houston, Texas. He left Towers Watson to return to academia in the actuarial position he currently holds at FSU.