In this paper, theoretical acoustic sensitivity was derived to describe acousto-optic transduction property of the mandrel type fiber optic acoustic sensor with respect to external acoustic field. The acoustic sensitivity was analyzed in relation to both material properties and geometrical influence factors of the constitutional parts of the sensor, analytically. Validity of the theoretical results were verified through comparison with the finite element analysis results. The variation trends of the sensitivity of the sensor in relation to the studied parameters showed good agreement for the two analysis methods. According to the results, it is considered more economical to design the basic structure of the sensor with the analytic equations developed in this paper, and then to carry out further detailed analysis with the finite element method for specific points of design interest.