i talked to a guy on the open day and he said actuary is the 'hardest' to get into but I think he meant academically. There are more places in actuary though so i think finance is harder bc there's lest places and also the candidature of applicants I'd imagine would be more all rounded (better extra curricula slightly worse academic). That's just my opinion cos everyone's said actuary is boring and they're ALL asian. You only need 93 to get in but I don't think you'd survive with that, I'd imagine 98 UAI min with 3 and 4U marks of at least 94-95.
My prefs were
1.marketing
2. accounting
3. finance
I had a lot of trouble pickin prefs because I was considering engineering too, but 4U maths this year has really annoyed me.
I would have put accounting first because I reckon I have the best chance in that bc there's more and not as quality candidates, but my thinking is that its really easy to get a job in accounting even if I didn't get a coop. But apparently marketing is a lot harder to get a good job, same with finance and actuary. So even though I think each career interests me equally I thought marketing would be best opportunity although I think there were only 4 last yr, as opposed to 7 finance, 17? actuary and 20+ accounting. And my marks have been really down this year, I think my UAI will be higher than what they'd predict from my trials, but they wouldn't be able to tell. I thought academic would be my strong point, cos i have alright extracurricula but not super fantastic, and I was looking at a 99.5 at the beginning of the year, but now more like high 98's. but last year someone 1 person got acctn, 1 actuarial and they both got btwn 98 and 99. so if you're below 99 there's still hope for actuarial and 1 got ISN with 99+
captain, school captain, and youth speaker at this environmental summit.
I think (I could be wrong) but even if it's not actuarial they prefer ppl who do 4U maths for accnt, finance, marketing as well. definitely for finance, but I had a look at the 2005 coop book and that has recommended knowledge 4U for all those courses. but there's a new coordinator or something of the coop program who started last yr so maybe that's why it changed.
And yes the online application website really really sucks, it wouldn't let me put in my english marks.