Exemption City

[jeaneu]

when i studied maths exams were once a year in April, I don't see why actuarial degrees can't do the same.

Maybe it's the university's policy rather than the degree itself that's the problem?

 

[examstudent]

not all universities have exams at same time
some unis have exam period in april, some in may, june etc

the degree at city concerned, for admin/logistics, falls under general univeristy regulations, not IOA regs

- hence unlikely to have exams shifted forward
- would uni allow assesement of internally taught course by externally set exams?

maybe look at it another way instead of fighting!

if you define risk as failing "actuarial exams", and these courses reduce that risk (failure probability of say 70% on IOA exams reduces to say 30 - 40% prob on degree based equivalents ) ..then you cant call it "cheating", "through the back door etc"
because your paying an additional upfront premium (10-20k - price of CMP + exam entry blah blah) for risk reduction.
however if premium appears "cheap", then maybe some kind of arbitrage (both strategies give FIA at ultimate future date, should involve same outlays in financial + non financial terms now but probably don't)
gareth, maybe your friend saw the price of the msc and "selected" against them,
or maybe "avanbuiten's" investment gave poor return.

 

[hi5]

not all universities have exams at same time
some unis have exam period in april, some in may, june etc

the degree at city concerned, for admin/logistics, falls under general univeristy regulations,

When I was at Uni, our department had completely different exams from the University general students.

It not something that is impossible to do.

........not IOA regs

Well, the uni are trying to follow the IOA regs for the expemptions anyway.......so i dont see a problem having exams in Septmeber or April. It seems like a complete non-issue that has been blown out of proportion.

- would uni allow assesement of internally taught course by externally set exams?

Infact its the exact opposite:

its university asssement of courses for the purpose of the University Degree.
its Inst asssement of courses for the purpose of the Exemptions.

maybe look at it another way instead of fighting!

Its somewhat an intellectual fight.

if you define risk as failing "actuarial exams", and these courses reduce that risk (failure probability of say 70% on IOA exams reduces to say 30 - 40% prob on degree based equivalents ) ..then you cant call it "cheating", "through the back door etc"
because your paying an additional upfront premium (10-20k - price of CMP + exam entry blah blah) for risk reduction.
however if premium appears "cheap", then maybe some kind of arbitrage (both strategies give FIA at ultimate future date, should involve same outlays in financial + non financial terms now but probably don't)
gareth, maybe your friend saw the price of the msc and "selected" against them,
or maybe "avanbuiten's" investment gave poor return.

That where the problem is. The university if not realising that they are selling out. Hence they continue to do so. Unless they realise this fact, they will be no arbitrage movements. And ppl will continue to buy the FIA FFA initials.

 

[avanbuiten]

Well, if not even one single person is confident enough to take the Institute exams (after being compensated for the time and exam fee) then I think that there is a big problem with the uni quality of education.

I'll take your challenge - I will require about £3,500 in compensation.

You may ask me to do either CT1, CT4(104), or CT6 as these are the exams I got exemptions from.

I will enter myself for any of the above exams upon receipt of the corresponding compensation.

 

[hi5]

......
I don't think of it as downgrading - I think of it as upgrading. Like I said, the course is a stepping stone towards getting an FIA. If I've known since I was 18 that I wanted to be an actuary, why should I waste 3 years studying a course I'm not interested in when I could spend that 3 years doing an actuarial course which gives me, at the end of that, some exemptions from the professional qualification I'm ultimately working towards?

(Thanks for the reply. I was starting to think that no one was listening to me.)
You have a valid point. Mine and many others on the "Against Sellout Exemptions" side mainly have serious issues with the MSc Act Sci courses which provide a avalanche* of exemptions in something like 60 days

(*I call it avalanche because candidates only work for a bit, and get a huge return for free, just as the case when someone starts an avalanche )

On a secondary note, people seem to be loosing track of the fact we were talking about the London City course which offers exceptions from a good chunk of the CT’s. all the ST’s and all the CA’s – for 60 study days

The exemptions awarded to BSc Actuarial is not our main issue, as you get 5-8 CT exemptions on 3 years full time study.
Apparently these exemptions seem justified regarding the amount of effort and work they do for them.


Now,

I'll take your challenge - I will require about £3,500 in compensation.

Firstly 2.5 exemptions is a comparative non issue, compared to ~12 exemptions.
Secondly the challenge is for MSc Act. Sci. students, who get the avalanche of exemptions, as stated above my King/me.

Third, I am serious enough in this matter that i am ready to write to the Inst/Fact for the waiving the exam fee (for MSc Degree students) and paying some compensation as well. (Although I doubt it will be as generous as you like)

You may ask me to do either CT1, CT4(104), or CT6 as these are the exams I got exemptions from.

Which brings us to a very interesting point. As is the case with accountancy bodies, they have a set of Core Papers for which they never ever award exemption; no matter how well qualified the candidate. These papers are the hardest and represent the ultimate in knowledge and skill.

We should have a similar system. No one will have issues with exemption from CT1 or similar subjects.
It only that we feel the heart-burn in harder subjects wherein our efforts are Herculean compared to those of the uni exemption students.

For all "Against sellout exemption"
Lets have a consensus on such subjects in which we are against exemptions.

My personal opinion that;
In these 6 papers there should be no exemptions:
SA
ST X
ST Y
CA1
CT8
CT4

While exemptions can be given for 9 subjects, subject to proper evaluation of the course:
CT1
CT2
CT3
CT5
CT6
CT7
CA2
CA3
BAM

 

[Gareth]

The Balance Has Moved in Favour of Uni's

I forgot to mention this before. Uni students are also eligible to submit their dissertation for exemption to subject ST0.

So even if they don't get > 65% in a subject, they can use their dissertation to get full exemptions...

The worse part of this? As actuarial students sitting the Institite exams, we are not allowed to submit dissertations for the ST0 subject, it's only open for uni student (as I discovered in a bizarre set of events...

I asked if I could write a dissertation for ST0, the examinations department said yes and said I need a supervisor + research proposal.

I spent about 4 weeks working out a detailed proposal, found an actuary to supervise...then I submitted it. A few weeks later the education committee decided this would not be in the "spirit of ST0".

So I had wasted 4 weeks of my time and of an actuary in helping work out the proposal...nice one!)

I think it's become much easier just to take a year out and go to uni. If i wasn't quite close to finishing, I would do that now.

 

[hi5]

I forgot to mention this before. Uni students are also eligible to submit their dissertation for exemption to subject ST0.

So even if they don't get > 65% in a subject, they can use their dissertation to get full exemptions...

The worse part of this? As actuarial students sitting the Institite exams, we are not allowed to submit dissertations for the ST0 subject, it's only open for uni student (as I discovered in a bizarre set of events...

I asked if I could write a dissertation for ST0, the examinations department said yes and said I need a supervisor + research proposal.

I spent about 4 weeks working out a detailed proposal, found an actuary to supervise...then I submitted it. A few weeks later the education committee decided this would not be in the "spirit of ST0".

So I had wasted 4 weeks of my time and of an actuary in helping work out the proposal...nice one!)

I think it's become much easier just to take a year out and go to uni. If i wasn't quite close to finishing, I would do that now.

Its a sellout! Its a sellout! Its a sellout!

Lets make our own university which would offer part-time distance learning MSc Act Sci degrees.

Realistically speaking all of us combined here have more knowlede than any University's Act Sci Dept selling degrees.

 

[examstudent]

hi 5, much as the exmption route sounds attractive

there is no way you could make your own department and run your own msc on "the belief you have more knowledge than those selling degrees"
because despite the fact you are supremely capable etc,
the guys who run those degrees actually contribute to academic research going on in profession and hence have very established credibility.

gareth, given your interests, i bet your research propasal was on some interface of financial/economics maths applications in actuarial science, and given the desire of the profession to try and "invade" this area, it must be very surprising (if not unfair) that they said no.

 

[Gareth]

i actually started a paper in anticipation they would say yes (as they had been very positive initially).

it was on the topic of pricing reinsurance in a market consistent way to the market prices of cat bonds on highly correlated risks.

a draft version is here: cat xl.pdf

if you are interested.

 

[examstudent]

interesting

mathematical finance applied to general insurance (as opposed to life ins)

i wonder wat they mean by the "spirit" of STO? (i.e does that mean they want to see more analysis/strategic/wider issues stuff crap e.g liquidity effects on cat bonds etc as opposed to the mathematical computations)
maybe you could adapt the format (whilst maintaining same mathematcial sophistication) to way similar papers are presented in BAJ (eg like the ones on pricing reserving and hedging GAOs where most of the mathematial intricacies are deferred to the appendix with more discussion in main text) - that might have increased chance of acceptance- who knows?

another thing - i think in hull it was mentioned that reinsurance is like a bull spread -well gareth in the spirit of ST6 you gotta draw a diagram of that and the "greeks" againt the underlying losses - lol - after all they love picture dont they!

 

[Gareth]

no, by "the spirit of ST0" they meant it is only for university students, not IOA student.

 

[examstudent]

unfair - it seems only other way is to find university supervisor, but then that ll be deemd invalid probably...

one thing - you say under risk neutral measure - loss process is assumed to be compound poisson - has any author found another reasonable way for deriving process under risk neutral measure - eg assume expected profit growth ( or price) on all contracts is risk free rate, and hence work backwards to find how loss process evolves etc - or some other way?

plus your end remarks about replicating reinsurance contract - cat bond + cash may be continuosly traded to an extent, but what about your (rather static) reinsurance contract you incepted at time zero?
the jump thing at the end - hull has an sde in his book for price process with jumps with poission parameter

i suppose lots of interetsing avenues can be explored

 

[hi5]

hi 5, much as the exmption route sounds attractive

Believe me it, its very attractive.

there is no way you could make your own department and run your own msc on "the belief you have more knowledge than those selling degrees"
because despite the fact you are supremely capable etc,
the guys who run those degrees actually contribute to academic research going on in profession and hence have very established credibility.

Agree 100%
&
That the irony: they have the credibility, we have justice.

 

[Gareth]

unfair - it seems only other way is to find university supervisor, but then that ll be deemd invalid probably...

one thing - you say under risk neutral measure - loss process is assumed to be compound poisson - has any author found another reasonable way for deriving process under risk neutral measure - eg assume expected profit growth ( or price) on all contracts is risk free rate, and hence work backwards to find how loss process evolves etc - or some other way?

plus your end remarks about replicating reinsurance contract - cat bond + cash may be continuosly traded to an extent, but what about your (rather static) reinsurance contract you incepted at time zero?
the jump thing at the end - hull has an sde in his book for price process with jumps with poission parameter

i suppose lots of interetsing avenues can be explored

i've seen a paper somewhere about modelling cat losses under a risk neutral measure (based on historical cat data). i've not looked at this for a while now, so i'd have to find the paper to give you more details.

my point about hedging is you have a static reinsurance liability that you want to hedge using cat bonds. this should in theory be partially possible if the underlying risks are highly correlated (more relevant to aggregate XL). i think it would involve holding a portfolio of cat bonds with different trigger levels, but i've not had time to look into it further.

interesting stuff nonetheless - shame the institute were so inflexible, seems unfair this is only open to the exemption ppl...

oh and i was told i could do SA0, but this would be 60,000 to 70,000 words long, which is the size of a phd thesis (no worth the effort for only a 3 hour exam imo)

 

[avanbuiten]

If university courses offering exemptions are such soft & easy options, and you have not yet qualified - then why are none of you signing up for them?

Anyone can apply to do these courses, even you.

Could it be that you're not prepared to sacrifice everything that such a one-year course would demand of you?

.......?

 

[King]

If university courses offering exemptions are such soft & easy options, and you have not yet qualified - then why are none of you signing up for them?

Anyone can apply to do these courses, even you.

Could it be that you're not prepared to sacrifice everything that such a one-year course would demand of you?

.......?

They are beneath me.

 

[hi5]

They are beneath me.

ahahahaahhahahaha..............ahahahahhaha

There 4 words did what I could not do in 4 pages. Thumbs up.

 

[Ryan]

Erased for good.

 

[vikky]

I actually read through this entire thread...Would take this opportunity to air my views on this...If the university courses are indeed path breaking then its only fair that the university students also give the same exams that everyone else has to appear for..its a little too "comfortable" if the same guy
1)Teaches you in the classroom
2)Sets your question paper
3)Corrects your answer paper
4)And also gives you marks on the internal assessments which add to your overall marks which then decide if you have got an exemption (or not)

The best way out would be to have common exams for everyone ....Standards maintained and everyone is happy
Cheers

 

[Hobbs]

5) And receives funding directly related to the number of people who get pumped through the course.

 

[jm_kinuthia]

Where i come from, exemptions from my university were/are granted based on exams and not an any internal assessments.

Also, exams there are way harder than the board exams themselves.

I say this from experience !