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Modeling the Future Challenge

Analyse a real dataset, quantify a risk, and make a recommendation, mentored by a working actuary.

Run by The Actuarial Foundation

Official website Reviews and tips

Key facts

Eligible grades
High school students in the United States who are taking junior or senior level mathematics classes such as statistics, probability, pre-calculus or calculus.
The Institute of Competition Sciences, which operates the challenge, describes eligibility as juniors and seniors. The previous listing said grades 9 to 12, which was wrong.
Source, checked 2026-09-02
Eligible ages
Not confirmed. This organiser may set eligibility by grade rather than age. We do not convert one into the other.
An age window of 13 to 19 is reported by third-party listings but was not found on the official pages checked.
Individual or team
Team · An individual, or a team of up to five students.
Where it runs
Online · United States
Entry cost
FreeNo entry fee, and mentoring is provided at no cost.
Registration deadline
Set locally, not published as a single national date The 2026-27 scenario deadline was not confirmed on the official pages checked. A third-party scholarship listing gives 9 November 2026; treat it as unconfirmed until it appears on mtfchallenge.org.
Competition dates
Scenario round in autumn, project round through winter, symposium in spring.
Difficulty
CompetitiveSerious preparation over a season. Advancing past the first round separates prepared students from unprepared ones.
Prizes
Scholarship prizes, paid as tuition scholarships directly to the winning students' colleges. The challenge site says $60,000; the Actuarial Foundation's page says $55,000. First and second place reports are published in the Actuarial Research Clearing House. A separate Climate Resilience Award has its own judging panel.Cash scholarships awarded to finalist and winning teams, split among members. Confirm current amounts on the official site.

What Modeling the Future Challenge is

The Modeling the Future Challenge asks teams to take a real-world dataset, model the risk it describes, and produce a recommendation for a decision-maker. Teams that pass the first scenario round are matched with a practising actuary as a mentor for their full research project. It is free, and it is one of the few competitions that puts students in direct working contact with a professional in the field.

How the competition works

Scenario Phase first: teams complete Scenario Quests using real datasets to show they have the skills for an actuarial research project. Teams that pass enter the Project Phase, define a project of their own, are matched with an actuary mentor, and produce a research report of up to 25 pages plus a visual highlight of risk and mitigation. Finalists submit an updated report and a recorded presentation and take part in virtual Q&A before the Symposium.

Eligibility notes

Teams of two to five students with a teacher or adult coach. Open to students in the United States and, in some cycles, internationally.

Is Modeling the Future Challenge right for you?

Experience needed
Some statistics. You do not need to know actuarial science; the mentoring covers that.
Time commitment
A few hours a week from autumn through winter.
What you actually do
You pick a risk that matters to you, find real data about it, build a model that quantifies it, and write a recommendation as though for someone who has to act on it.

A good fit if

  • You like statistics applied to real decisions
  • You want a professional mentor
  • You are considering actuarial science, finance or data science

Probably not for you if

  • Students who want pure mathematics
  • Teams unwilling to work with messy real data

Compare this against competitions matched to you

Common mistakes

  • Choosing a topic with no accessible data. Check the data exists before committing.
  • Producing analysis without a recommendation. The challenge explicitly asks what a decision-maker should do.
  • Underusing the mentor, who is a working professional given to you for free.

How to register

  1. Register a team of two to five with an adult coach on mtfchallenge.org.
  2. Complete the scenario round, which is a structured data analysis task and qualifies you for the project round.
  3. Choose a topic and find real data. The challenge publishes guidance on where to look.
  4. Work with your assigned actuarial mentor and submit the research paper by the winter deadline.

Register on the official site

What skills you need

  • Statistics and probability
  • Risk modelling
  • Working with real datasets
  • Spreadsheet or Python analysis
  • Writing a recommendation for a decision-maker

Recommended resources

Past problems and materials

Only materials the organiser or an authorised archive publishes openly are listed here.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to know what an actuary does?

No. The challenge provides free curriculum material and assigns qualifying teams a practising actuary as a mentor. Learning the field is part of the point.

What data can we use?

Real public data of your choosing. The challenge publishes guidance on sources, and choosing a topic where good data actually exists is the most important early decision.

Reviews, tips and resources from other students

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