bewildered, worried and want some advice

[Hsingwen Tang]

I have an engineering background. I want to enter the actuarial field. I just pass the first one exam. And by looking over the exam material, I think I should be able to pass preliminary exams, just need some time. I am highly interested in the exam material. I want to go to graduate school. But the disadvantage is that I also have a low GPA. I am going to taking GRE in September and I want to apply 2008 spring graduate program. But what if NO SCHOOL WANT ME? GPA is an important index for schools to choose their students. But my low GPA is already a unchangeable fact. Should I pass all the preliminary exams and then to apply for graduate schoool? Or should I apply for 20 schools that may increase the probability that I can enter graduate school?

[wat]

I have an engineering background. I want to enter the actuarial field. I just pass the first one exam. And by looking over the exam material, I think I should be able to pass preliminary exams, just need some time. I am highly interested in the exam material. I want to go to graduate school. But the disadvantage is that I also have a low GPA. I am going to taking GRE in September and I want to apply 2008 spring graduate program. But what if NO SCHOOL WANT ME? GPA is an important index for schools to choose their students. But my low GPA is already a unchangeable fact. Should I pass all the preliminary exams and then to apply for graduate schoool? Or should I apply for 20 schools that may increase the probability that I can enter graduate school?

Is there a reason you need to go to graduate school if you're going into the actuarial profession?

[Hsingwen Tang]

Well, is there a need?....Because I was not educated in the Us. I had my chemical engineering bachelor degree in Taiwan. Worried about my English communication skills and I don't know much about US. If I want to aquire a job here I think I had better improve those skills. Besides, I don't have any economic, math or computer background--except I perform very well in math and love it till high school. I like math, I like to research and analyze. I think actuary is the thing I like to do. I might have potential, but I doubt if those skills and ability are enough at work at this stage. I like academic envirnoment too.
I want to apply for actuarial science graduate program. As I know there are about a dozen schools have this graduate program, am I right? Or is there any related field, like accouting, finance mathematics also help in enter actuarial field? I only pass one exam. Many college grads graduated with 3 exam passed. Those graduate adimission offices may dump my application into trash can. But I still want to try.

Do you think that having a master degree in actuarial science would help a lot in entering actuarial field?

[nnanzer]

Boston University offers an MS Actuarial Science through their Metropolitan College and you do not need to submit GRE scores for admission. www.bu.edu/actuary