UCF or Illinois Wesleyan

Hello! I am down to two choices for college so far: Illinois Wesleyan or UCF. After scholarships, Illinois Wesleyan would be affordable, around $15k per year (including all fees), while UCF is a full ride. In the future I plan on being a music teacher as well as pursuing performance and composition. I play the cello.

I got good impressions from both. I toured UCF a while ago, and really liked the large campus and the prospects of a music education job after college (apparently Florida has a great market for music educators), and it seemed like there was a lot of opportunities, which was great. But I never got to take a lesson with the cello instructor, so I would still be unsure if I accepted. Also, I plan on being in a big city in the future (I’m planning on going to grad school), so Florida may not be my permanent place of residence.

Illinois Wesleyan would be good (I live not too far away, and it’s only a 2 1/2 hour train ride to the city of Chicago), I think, as well. I took a music composition camp there a while ago, and really liked the instruction I got there, and feel like I could get better as a musician. A small campus is fine with me, even if it’s not ideal. The only problem is that it is in Bloomington, so it is not around a lot of other areas.

Does anyone have any tips/advice on selecting a final college, or have any experience with either of these colleges? Thank you!

It’s not really clear to me what your goal is here. Do you want to employed as a music teacher after completing your degree? Or, do you see the undergrad degree as preparation for a Masters in performance and composition?

Here are some thoughts if you are hoping for a job right after graduation:

Have you checked explicitly for the job placement statistics from the two schools? Specifically, have you asked how many of their graduates find teaching jobs immediately following graduation? And, what kind of teaching job - public school with full pay and benefits, or a few hours or days at a community music school, or are graduates teaching a few students in a private studio? Is there a placement office that helps with music teaching openings? Do any of the schools’ music education faculty have connections with area school districts and can help in the job search and hiring process?

These questions are very different than hearing that “Florida has a great market for music educators” - you don’t know where these new educators were trained. Many universities in both Florida and Illinois offer music ed degrees - you will be potentially competing for jobs with many other new graduates from other schools. You need to know how the schools you are interested in, UCF and Illinois Wesleyan, stack up in actual job placement success.

If you are looking toward a Masters in performance or composition, ask the teachers where their students have gone on to grad school. You will also want to assess and compare the overall quality of the opportunities in areas other than music ed - quality of the orchestra, chamber music possibilities, the amount of solo recital and other performing situations you can experience, opportunities to have your compositions performed, etc.

Apparently Wesleyan’s music ed program has a 100% undergraduate employment rate in music education and many of their undergrads end up going to graduate schools such as Manhattan School of Music and other prestigious schools, so that would be a huge positive with Illinois Wesleyan. I am pretty sure that UCF also has a 100% rate and that schools are looking so much for teachers that it is not hard at all to find a job outside of school, and students also have opportunities to work with schools outside of UCF.

Wesleyan seems to have a lot of opportunities and a really good, intensive music program that covers solo, chamber, and orchestra. I talked to a few of the professors and there is a solid composition program with opportunities to have their pieces performed. UCF definitely seems to have a lot of solo and orchestra performance opportunities, but I don’t think composition is as much of a focus there.