Ours is one of only twelve programs (nine of which are in the United States) that are recognized as Centers of Actuarial Excellence by the Society of Actuaries. Each university so recognized met specific requirements related to degree, curriculum, graduate count, faculty composition, graduate quality, appropriate integration, connection to industry, and research/scholarship. We are the only Center of Actuarial Excellence in the state of Illinois.
Our Actuarial Program Advisory Board is composed of outstanding practicing actuaries who advise us on the effectiveness and comprehensiveness of our program.
We have an excellent job placement record. Completion of our actuarial program has lead to actuarial employment with an insurance company or a consulting firm for an overwhelming majority of our students. In the recent years, our students have been placed with the following companies: Aegon, Aflac, Allianz, Allstate, Aon Consulting, Arch Insurance, Assurant, AXA-Equitable, Baloise Life, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, Chubb, Citigroup, CNA, Conseco, COR AG Insurance Technologies, COUNTRY Financial, Deloitte, Dion Durrell & Associates, Donlon & Associates, Ergo Insurance, esurance, Gabriel, Roeder, Smith & Co., Hannover Reinsurance, The Hartford, Horace Mann, Humana, ISO, Liberty Mutual, Lincoln National, Milliman, Munich Reinsurance, Nationwide, New York Life, Pekin Insurance, Pinnacle Actuarial Resources, Progressive, RLI Insurance Corporation, Rockhill Insurance, State Auto Insurance. State Farm, SUA Insurance, Swiss Reinsurance, Towers Perrin, Travelers, Trustmark, ULLICO, Watson Wyatt, Wausau Insurance, Wellpoint, Zurich.
We offer undergraduate classes covering material on the first four actuarial examinations, as well as all Validation by Educational Experience (VEE) requirements, and graduate level classes covering the mathematical contents of more advanced examinations of the Society of Actuaries, and the Casualty Actuarial Society. In addition to actuarial courses, a variety of statistics classes in the Department of Mathematics, and insurance classes in the Katie School of Insurance and Financial Services are offered. Our program also administers intensive review seminars for actuarial examinations, the first two of them at no charge, and additional ones at substantially reduced fees, to Illinois State University students. You can see a graph of the history of our actuarial examinations successes here.
We encourage our students to pursue excellent opportunities for internships available locally with State Farm, one of the largest insurance firms in the world, and other companies in town: COUNTRY Financial, Towers Perrin, Pinnacle Actuarial Resources, Inc., as well as many other employers, especially those listed above, who have hired our students in the last five years.
We offer numerous scholarships in actuarial science: Actuarial Scholars (State Farm Scholars, Country Scholars, Zurich Scholars, Pinnacle Scholars, and Katie School Scholars), D.W. Simpson Scholarships, Orlyn Edge Scholarships. Many additional scholarships are available from the Katie School of Insurance and Financial Services in the College of Business. Our students are also very successful in securing external scholarships, mostly from the insurance industry and foundations supporting actuarial science and insurance education.
Our faculty are engaged in cutting edge research, funded by various external agencies, and published in books and top-level journals. Current topics of study include longevity improvement and its effect on retirement systems, statistical methods used in health insurance, actuarial and economic aspects of life insurance backdating, optimal structure of insurance and reinsurance contracts, and asset-liability management methodologies.
Illinois State University gives you a small college experience with large university opportunities. We offer small class sizes, access to professors, low cost of living, and very reasonable tuition. Our actuarial students are encouraged to join the Honors Program, and the Actuarial Club within Gamma Iota Sigma. In addition to the Actuarial Program, we also host programs in mathematics, statistics, and biomathematics (joint with the Department of Biology) within the Department of Mathematics, and have a thriving program of education in insurance at the College of Business. We cooperate closely with the Katie School of Insurance and Financial Services.
The industry is actively recruiting minorities for actuarial careers. We support this effort by offering scholarships to minority students. We also host the Minority High School Scholars Actuarial Academy, a unique summer program for minority high school students, which is supported by the insurance industry and actuarial societies.
Illinois State University's tuition rates are very reasonable, and it consistently places us in the list of colleges where students graduate with the least amount of debt. Furthermore, students from other states can generally petition to become state of Illinois residents for tuition purposes, if they meet certain conditions, after six months . The form for petitioning for the in-state status is posted here: http://www.registrar.ilstu.edu/downloads/petitionresidencystatus.pdf
