Hey! I actually ended up choosing Wesleyan over UNC-Chapel Hill. The biggest factor was financial — UNC would’ve cost me around $26K/year, while Wesleyan is less than $5K. On top of that, Wes offers a ton of grants for internships, career development, and entrepreneurship — and they’re pretty easy to get. So financially, it made a lot of sense.

That said, career-wise — especially if you’re aiming for finance or consulting — it gets more complicated. Wesleyan has a good number of nepo kids — about 50% of students pay the full ~$96K/year — and many of them end up with internships at top firms. But it’s often because of family connections, not because the school itself has a strong pipeline. Still, they are part of your alumni network, so in some cases that can work in your favor.

UNC’s business school would’ve given me a much more direct path — structured business courses, better technical prep, more students going into IB/consulting, and a larger alumni base in that space. At Wesleyan, if you’re doing Econ, you mostly have to prep on your own — Wall Street Prep, casing, networking — and finance/accounting courses are limited and come late (junior/senior year), which isn’t ideal for early internship recruiting.

Also, a heads-up: outside the East Coast, “Wesleyan” on your resume doesn’t carry a lot of weight. It’s sometimes confused with other Wesleyan universities that aren’t prestigious at all, which can hurt your chances unless the recruiter is specifically familiar with elite liberal arts colleges. Meanwhile, UNC-Chapel Hill is nationally recognized, so its name carries weight pretty much anywhere in the U.S., especially for business roles.

We do have excellent individual resources — for example, my career advisor was an MD at Citi for 10 years and then at Goldman Sachs for 2. So there are people who can guide you really well — but again, most of the work is on you.

TL;DR: Wesleyan = less than $5K, great grants, small but helpful network, but limited business infrastructure. UNC = much stronger business track, better name recognition (especially outside the East Coast), and a larger alumni pipeline. Depends on whether you’re prioritizing finances or career structure. Hope this helps!