Careers › Business & finance
Uses maths and statistics to price risk for insurers, banks and pension funds.
Actuaries use probability and statistics to price risk – what an insurance policy should cost, how much a pension fund needs to pay out over decades. The degree is demanding and the professional exams (through the Actuarial Society of South Africa) continue for years after you graduate, but it’s consistently one of the highest-paid professions for new graduates.
This is our general description of the role and related jobs, not from an official source – it’s here to give you a fuller picture, not as a careers-counselling guarantee.
This is our general guidance about which school subjects suit this career. It is not an admission requirement and not from an official source – the real requirements are on the degrees below.
Counted from the requirements below (an “or” alternative counts for each subject named). Each degree links to the page it came from.
4 degrees at 4 universities. More are added as we verify them.
Stellenbosch aggregate 80 %
Every Stellenbosch programme is a selection programme. The figures shown are the published minimum requirements - the actual selection threshold is usually higher.
Source: View the official page (files.su.ac.za) (opens the official page) · 2027 intake
UCT Faculty Points Score 500 out of 600 (band a)
Band A (guaranteed offer) is an FPS of 500. Band B (likely offer) is a WPS of 525 - the WPS adds a 0-10% disadvantage factor that we cannot work out from your marks, so we only check you against Band A. Band C (475-479, Education Development Unit only) applies to redress categories only.
Source: View the official page (uct.ac.za) (opens the official page) · 2027 intake
UP APS 36 points
Most UP closing dates are 30 June; Veterinary Science closes 31 May. Grade 12 applicants apply with their final Grade 11 results.
Source: View the official page (drupalwebprod-files.up.ac.za) (opens the official page) · 2027 intake
Wits APS 42 points
This figure comes from the Wits schools-liaison Grade 12 guide, which is headed for 2026 entry. We have not yet found a 2027 course-finder page confirming it, so treat it as the most recent official figure rather than a confirmed 2027 one.
Source: View the official page (wits.ac.za) (opens the official page) · 2027 intake
Put your subjects in once and we’ll check them against every degree above – scored each university’s own way.