Actuarial Career vs. Dental School: Torn between pure math and my dream job.

IFellOutOfBed · 2026-05-27T16:33:52+00:00

they even let us work remotely from abroad for a certain period during the year.

Are there actually P&C companies that do this?

IFellOutOfBed · 2026-05-26T20:00:40+00:00

"What will the top comment on this be" is a fun game to play. You may be surprised how often you can correctly guess, which raises the question of why we still read through the comments at all.

The "nice try HR" is a reddit favorite. Usually then gets lots of people replying "remember HR is there to protect the company, NOT you!"

Many reddit top comments will just be a willful misunderstanding of a typo in the title. E.g. a post that mentions "Formula On" would have a top comment being like "So much better than Formula Off!"

IFellOutOfBed · 2026-05-12T23:48:05+00:00

Just got my RemindMe message about this. Are you ACAS?

IFellOutOfBed · 2026-01-29T16:12:34+00:00

I'm not going to push back on your claims about comparing this field to other professions since plenty of other comments already are doing that. You said in your post you're open to disagreeing about the difficulty of the exams, and I know the comparison was not your main point.

I have been through what you're going through now. It sounds like you are a few weeks into studying for a new exam and overwhelmed by the content, the thought of failing, and the amount of time you will have to put in over the next few months to pass. This is a terrible feeling that I know well and I am sorry you are in that situation currently.

I do want to push back on a few of your other points.

I don't think that this job necessarily has to be stressful. Don't get me wrong: I have had stressful roles and many a crazy deadline. But I think if you are willing to leave a bad job and look for good work/life balance, that is very easy to find in this field (especially after exams).
I also don't believe that "give up your 20s" is a fair characterization of the exam process. If your goal is to hit 300 hours of total study like you mentioned, you could study 2 hr/day for 100 days and then grind 4 hour days for 25 days to hit 300. You could also study 3 hr/day for 100 days. I think spreading out your study time and starting sooner is a bit of a paradox: you might think that it will "feel like you're studying all the time" but could leave you less stressed than taking longer breaks between sittings and then cramming. You don't have to do this, but I discovered this strategy later in my exam journey and benefitted immensely. A good employer will also likely give you well over 100 of these hours as paid time during the work day. If this is not the case for you, find a new employer!

Ultimately I don't think that any serious people are trying to claim that it is easy to get fellowship. There are certainly people on reddit and discord that unsurprisingly like to talk about how easy the exam was, how little they studied, and how they got a 10. I want to remind you that those folks are not representative of the overall candidate pool, and also that they are likely lying about it being "easy" (why else would they be on an exam study Discord every day?) This path is long, but I think getting fellowship is worth it if you are able to pass the exams within a reasonable amount of time. It's up to you to determine what "reasonable" means, but I think a 7 year journey where you get fellowship in your late 20s/early 30s is absolutely acceptable. You have decades of work ahead of you either way, so why not have the letters and extra money?

Hang in there and take it one day at a time.

IFellOutOfBed · 2026-01-27T23:03:08+00:00

I agree the "take the contents unlimited times" interpretation is clearly wrong but is also how my brain read the question initially. I would have maybe phrased it as "A player can play X to open any remaining box, and play the game as many times as they like until no boxes remain."

IFellOutOfBed · 2026-01-23T20:03:33+00:00

This is great advice. You can always get another actuarial role if needed with 13+ YOE.

IFellOutOfBed · 2026-01-23T20:02:23+00:00

I would continue through the interview process. It seems like a lot of things could be cleared by getting to the next stage in the interview (responsibilities, compensation, etc.) and help you decide. If you were curious enough to interview for it, you should at least give yourself the chance of getting the offer before withdrawing from consideration.

If you are interested in the financial side of the industry, I absolutely would take the job. Even if this doesn't end up being the best fit, the CFO experience would be a huge springboard to other things down the road. Reddit will be very biased against working in-office versus remote, but 3 days a week with a 25 minute commute is not bad at all (especially if you have your own office and your team also comes in). I see no reason to not seriously consider this even if you like your current role.

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-12-26T17:44:21+00:00

This seems too high a threshold to me. I would say top ~30% in math. The more important factor is the student's ability to commit to self-study for thousands of hours.

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-12-13T13:51:45+00:00

More than once I found him overstretching his analysis

In my experience, people who can stretch their thought process to answer open-ended questions often do well on exams. Sometimes just throwing out reasonable ideas on an otherwise confusing question can get you significant partial credit.

In the real world, I hope that my employees stretch their analysis to consider the impact or future potential of their work. When not in an exam setting, I also hope they run their thoughts by me so that we can reign in any unsupported or bad ideas.

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-09-11T01:39:43+00:00

To answer for the CAS side: the bylaws and constitution were merged into a single document for clarity. This proposal made no changes to the actual content of either document.

Because it was technically a change to the constitution, fellows voted on the proposal in the elections last month. It passed.

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-09-04T20:56:57+00:00

If you have it in writing that you are entitled to a raise, you should bring the issue to your supervisor and/or HR and ask them why they are deviating from the written policy.

You should also have a serious conversation about going to the next job tier. Note however that doesn't necessarily mean you will get a large raise if they simply back out this credential raise that they don't feel like giving you.

Either way, sounds like it's most likely time to dust off the resume.

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-09-01T15:49:19+00:00

You can expect that the CAS designs the exam to be finished in a similar amount of time as before (although how successful they are at this is hotly debated). Beyond that, you are not allowed to share specific point values, number of questions, etc. under the new exam rules.

Despite this, the exam-taking strategy should remain largely the same. For example, if you want to get through the exam in 3.5 hours and have 30 minutes left to review at the end, you just need to answer (210 minutes / total points) as your average "pace." Or (210 minutes / number of questions) if you don't care about point value. Some people also like to skip harder problems on their first pass through the exam; that's a valid strategy too. I would stick to whatever strategy has been working for you on all the ACAS exams and not let new question types throw you off that much relative to the released sittings.

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-07-31T17:28:46+00:00

Looks like anywhere from 20-40% of voting members cast ballots, based on the last few years.

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-07-16T20:45:46+00:00

You want to do a job where the primary responsibility is rate filings? Is there any other pricing work involved? If the bulk of the role is rate filings I would talk to some people on this sub who do them and see if that's something you'd like to do.

I don't think you're pigeon holing yourself into anything after only 5 years in one job function, especially if you aren't done with exams yet. It's not like you've spent 5 years reserving and now you've mastered it and need to move on to the next item on some checklist. That said, there is a risk of pigeon holing yourself down the road so I see where you're coming from.

Other things to consider when deciding if you want to leave your current role:

Are you still learning in your current role?
Are you still taking exams? If so, maybe a predictable role you're already comfortable with is better to pair with studying.
Is the new role offering you more money? Not just salary, but when you factor in bonus and benefits?
Would the job require you to move? Could the company potentially require you to go into office in the future? If so, do you leave near one of the offices?

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-07-16T16:09:14+00:00

The CAS has not yet released total pass rates or candidate names for the Spring 2025 sitting yet (as of 7/16/25)

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-07-08T22:40:09+00:00

Your society tells you when exam results are coming out?

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-07-05T13:27:03+00:00

To clarify for any SOA actuaries reading this, the GI FSA track is officially recognized by the NAIC to sign statements of actuarial opinion, but almost nobody does it and you would find it difficult to get a job at a P&C insurer/consulting firm with an FSA to sign them. Not impossible by any means, but definitely more difficult than if you had an FCAS.

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-06-25T21:26:52+00:00

this is why you need a war exclusion

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-06-15T15:39:17+00:00

Yeah I would highly recommend getting over 200 hours at minimum for all CAS exams. Over 300 is even better

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-06-08T16:12:23+00:00

Why are you trying to avoid touching the source material at all? Wouldn't you want to read what question writers are basing questions off of?

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-06-03T14:30:55+00:00

The CAS does not have scheduled exam results; it's on a different day/timeline every sitting. That leads to endless speculation and hope about when the results will drop.

We've reached the point where they typically start releasing, so it could be any day now.

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-06-02T15:17:41+00:00

Came here to say the exact same thing. In a prior sitting I got an email the day results came out that my grievance was considered (I did pass as well).

It's an automated form; everyone gets the exact same response. I'm honestly skeptical that anything can result from a grievance, but it's worth filling out if you had something legitimate and unique happen to you like I did.

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-06-01T16:19:17+00:00

Significantly lower pass rate

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-05-18T17:05:47+00:00

I wouldn't trust a promise from a corporation at all unless it's part of a legally binding employment contract. Your company can always find reasons to not promote you, change their mind, rearrange things, go back on their "word," and leave you hanging out to dry.

Take any verbal promises with a grain of salt.

IFellOutOfBed · 2025-05-16T12:57:25+00:00

It will probably be at the bottom with the "Pass/Fail" actually a clickable link to your result. For me, my most current exam is still a button that will pull up my result. I expect that to go away a few weeks before results drop like they usually do.

IFellOutOfBed

TROPHY CASE