Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ranked No. 10 this year, moving up five places from 2022.
On the 2023 ranking, it ranked 10th overall in the Career Outcomes, 11th in Admissions, and fourth in Academic Experience.
UNC Kenan-Flagler held strong in both internship and employment outcomes this year, with 97% of the Class of 2021 securing a business-focused internship before graduation, the same as the Class of 2021. Some 97.80% of the class landed a full-time job by the time of graduation.
As for compensation, the average starting salary for the Class of 2022 was $83,525, up almost $12,000 over the previous class. Meanwhile, 68% of 2022 grads reported getting a signing bonus of an average of $9,394.
With an acceptance rate of 10%, up about a tenth of a percentage from last year’s 11.42%, admission into UNC Kenan-Flagler was more competitive this year than similar schools such as Emory University’s Goizueta, which had a 16% acceptance rate. The average SAT score for accepted students at UNC Kenan-Flagler was 1390, quite high but down from last year’s 1422.
UNC Kenan-Flagler advertises its undergraduate business degree program as a “rigorous undergraduate business education with broad career applications.” And its impressive program offerings prove that.
Undergraduate business majors at UNC Kenan-Flagler are required to complete 10 core courses, six business electives, and five electives outside of business. Additionally, the UNC Kenan-Flagler degree offers customization based on students’ interests and desired career trajectory. Business students can choose to complete up to two “Areas of Emphasis” (AOE) as part of their major ranging from fields such as consulting, entrepreneurship, investment banking, and more.
STUDENT TEAMS ACHIEVING RESULTS (STAR)
One of the cornerstone programs at UNC Kenan-Flagler is STAR, a program that matches teams of MBA and undergraduate business students with corporate partners to solve complex business challenges. Through the experiential course, students work on diverse teams on a real-life consulting project with a company or organization to solve a business problem and improve their performance. For many students, STAR offers an opportunity to experience collaborative teamwork in coming up with a business solution.
“My team was assigned the only non-profit in that particular year’s suite of organizations, and this was a transformative way for me to understand how to work with people of different experience levels and address the unique challenges of mission-driven organizations,” one alum told us. “This helped inform my decision to join consulting, and to do so in a large company’s government practice so that I had the best of the private sector and public sector at my fingertips.”
Another unique program to Kenan-Flagler is the GLOBE program, an integrated and immersive 18-month curriculum where students gain first-hand exposure to foreign business operations and culture.
The GLOBE program is essentially an 18-month study abroad program at a partner universities: Chinese University of Hong Kong and Copenhagen Business School.
Students study in cohorts of around 54 students on all three campuses and study business with expertise from three business school’s faculties.
GLOBAL IMMERSION EXPERIENCE
In addition to the GLOBE program, UNC Kenan-Flagler offers other opportunities for undergraduate business students to travel the world and learn about business and culture firsthand.
For many, this experience is through a Global Immersion Elective, where students can partake in an immersion program and complete an internship in the same summer.
The Global Immersion Elective program offers students a series of courses in Chapel Hill and intense, all-day in-country programming where students learn about the forces and factors that shape business in the region. Students visit companies and meet with business and government leaders as well as local students to learn about the region’s culture, social and political characteristics and economic development factors.
WELL PREPARED FOR THE WORLD OF WORK
Overall, the UNC Kenan-Flagler program is right for students looking to get a solid and rigorous business education with opportunities to explore a variety of career applications and interests through programs such as STAR and GLOBE®.
As North Carolina’s public flagship institution, graduates often fuel the economy with Charlotte, Raleigh and Durham in the top post-graduation destinations (along with New York and Atlanta). UNC Kenan-Flagler offers a solid undergraduate business education from a renowned public university.
2021 Alumni say:
“I held an internship with the Undergraduate Business School Office and worked with the career team, the study abroad office, admissions and the academic team my senior year of college. It gave me irreplaceable connections with the staff that I still keep up with post graduation and let me start applying my ‘real world’ skills while still in school.”
“I was enrolled in the Consulting Skills and Frameworks Class that primarily consisted of us taking real-world problems that actual businesses would come in and seek our solutions on. The strategies, presentation skills, frameworks, and confidence in problem-solving abilities gained in this course all continue to serve me on a daily basis in my career.”
“One key experiential learning experience I engaged with was the STAR Program, which created opportunities for undergraduates and MBA students to work together on a real-life consulting project with companies and organizations over the course of the semester.”
“I was a member of the Kenan Scholars program, hosted at the Kenan Institute for Private Enterprise. My cohort of peers shared the same values and interests as I did: applying business skills to complex challenges in the public and nonprofit sectors. The Kenan Scholars program gave me an outlet to truly explore what mattered most to me, through networking opportunities, seminar discussions, and even a funding internship experience abroad! I learned so much about myself during my two years.”
“I studied abroad for a semester in Pamplona, Spain through the Undergraduate Business Study Abroad Program. This was an unimaginable experience that improved my cultural understanding, Spanish language, and provided me with an experience that pushed me outside of my comfort zone, challenged me in numerous ways, and enabled me to learn from professors from across the globe.”
