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I know that there are a lot of exams for actuaries, but how many more do you have to take and how long will it take you? I am on the 2017 track for getting my MLS one free class at a time :P Well, not really that long, but it feels like. However, it will be an entirely debt free proposition. --Katherine H

I guess you have to put it out of your mind until you get the results. I can't believe it takes that long to get scores. I think it would make me batty!

Sorry you don't feel more confident about the results. We were thinking about you and how hard all this is, but anything worth working for stretches ones abilities. Are these things graded off shore or something? Maybe by the Dell tech support staff which explains why they take so long to not answer your questions!

The best case scenario would have me getting my Associateship in early 2010, but that assumes I will pass all of my exams, including this one, on the first sitting. If I didn't pass this one I will still have 3 preliminary exams, 3 college course equivalents to get (one of which will be taken care of this winter with the stats course), a set of 8 professional development modules with two milestone assessments, and an ethics seminar. I can still get this done by late 2010 (exams are offered twice a year), but I don't think it's realistic to assume that I'll pass every remaining exam on the first try. And then, of course, I get to start taking the fellowship exams. I'm not up on the requirements for fellowship because they keep adjusting the process and I figure it'll change before I get there, but I think it's in the realm of another 2-3 professional development modules and 2 written answer exams.

As far as grading, the test I took is multiple choice, so once they scan it in they will know my raw score. Then an exam committee sits down and determines what the pass mark should be based on how difficult the test was and how well the test takers did. I would expect a pass mark around 17 or 18 out of 30, which means I could pass, but since I don't remember all of my answers it's hard to say if I got that many correct.

The reason they wait so long to release the grades is that they give many exams in the fall (and in the spring), some of which are multiple choice, but the fellowship exams are written answer, so someone has to read and score them before the exam committee can get started on determining the overall difficulty of the exam and setting the pass mark. They wait until all of the exams are graded to release the results. It looks like Jan 11th is probably going to be the day, but they haven't announced a specific date yet so it could be the 4th or the 18th.

I think you could finish medical school or something before then! Why all the hoops? I am taking Database Design (Relational database theory and SQL), and I have to use greek letters and things with "calculus" in the name, which has turned out to be scarier than it sounds. Of course, I also get to draw a lot of diagrams :) --Katherine H.