ACTUARIAL EXAMS

What are Actuarial Exams?
To become a certified actuary, one must pass a certain set of exams administered by the SOA (Society of Actuaries), or the CAS (Casualty Actuarial Society). Unlike other professions, actuaries have the opportunity to actually work as an actuary while going through the exam process; depending on the employer, companies even pay for study materials and give generous days off for actuaries to study for these exams and usually award actuaries with a raise for each exam passed because they are so important for advancement in the career. The first three exams in the path to Associate-ship for either actuarial society (SOA or CAS) are jointly administered by both societies, so many prospective actuaries begin the exam process in college and take any available preparatory courses for them there or find self-study courses and resources online to prepare for them.

It is encouraged to start taking exams earlier rather than later, as many internships require at least one exam passed. Employers prefer to hire students who have exam experience because it shows dedication to the career and a good work ethic, since the student usually has to take their own initiative to study for these exams, and employers know that these exams are extremely difficult, so being able to pass an exam means the student put in a fair amount of time and effort to study on his or her own.
What classes can I take at Cornell to prepare for these exams?
As of now, Cornell does not have a specific actuarial track for prospective actuaries to follow through their undergraduate career here, but there is an Actuarial Concentration under the Biometry and Statistics major in the College of Agriculture of Life Sciences, and many classes outside of that help prepare students for the first few actuarial exams as well. Many of these classes are also actual course requirements for many related majors, such as Statistical Science, Economics, and Math. CAS compiled a list of these classes, summarized below.
Updated August 2023

Exam P
  • ECON 3130: Statistics and Probability. Offered Fall. Arts & Sciences.
  • ECON 3110: Probability Models and Inference for the Social Sciences. Offered Fall/Spring. Arts & Sciences
  • MATH 4710: Basic Probability. Offered Fall. Arts & Sciences.
  • MATH 4720: Statistics. Offered Spring. Arts & Sciences.
  • BTRY 3080/STSCI 3080: Probability Models and Inference. Offered Fall/Spring. CALS/Arts & Sciences.
  • ENGRD 2700: Basic Engineering Probability and Statistics. Offered Fall/Spring/Summer. Engineering.
  • ORIE 3500: Engineering Probability and Statistics II. Offered Fall/Summer. Engineering.

​​Exam FM
  • AEM 2240/2241: Finance. Offered Fall/Spring. AEM.
  • BTRY 3090/STSCI 3090: Theory of Interest. Offered every other Spring. CALS/Arts & Sciences
  • ECON 4240: Financial Economics, Derivatives, and Risk Management. Offered Summer. Arts & Sciences
  • HADM 2250: Finance. Offered Fall/Spring. HADM.​

​OTHER EXAMS
  • AEM 4210: Futures, Options, and Financial Derivatives. Offered Spring. AEM.
  • AEM 4590: Financial Markets and Institutions. Offered Fall. AEM.
  • STSCI 4270: Introduction to Survival Analysis. Offered Fall/Spring. Arts & Sciences.​​​
  • BTRY 4090: Theory of Statistics. Offered Fall/Spring. CALS.
  • BTRY 3080/STSCI 3080: Probability Models and Inference. Offered Fall/Spring. CALS/Arts & Sciences.​​

​​Additional Courses
  • STSCI 4990: Undergraduate Individual Study in Statistics. Offered Fall/Spring. Arts & Sciences.
  • STSCI 4980: Tutorial in Actuarial Statistics. Offered Fall/Spring. Arts & Sciences.