What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$4,101 to $27,292 a year for in-state students, depending on income.
College Scorecard 2024 estimate · in-state rates
See the price at your income ↑Sticker price
Full cost before aid: $28,679 a year in-state. Average need-based aid package: $30,639.Aid and debt
27.7%
receive need-based grants
$28,931
average debt at graduation
4,141
students got merit aid
about 11% of undergraduates
$6,340
average merit award
Getting In
A note for out-of-state applicants
University of Wisconsin–Madison is required to enroll a minimum number of new in-state undergraduates each year, under a policy set by UW System Board of Regents. That in-state minimum isn't a direct cap on out-of-state students, but it does limit how many seats are left over for applicants from outside Wisconsin.
Key dates
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1400–1490 · 12% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 29–33 · 29% of the class submitted
58.4% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- GPA
- Important
- Personal essay
- Recommendations
- Extracurriculars
- Character
- In-state residency
- Considered
- Class rank
- SAT/ACT scores
- Special talent
- First-gen status
- Where you're from
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Not considered
- Legacy status
- Demonstrated interest
What this means for you
Wisconsin rates course rigor as Very Important, and your essay, your recommendations, and your activities as Important.
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Rigor means AP, IB, and dual enrollment carry real weight — make sure your mix of AP or IB courses is strong. A strong essay can differentiate an otherwise average application. Recommendations matter here too — a recommender who knows you well helps. And depth and leadership in a few activities matter more than a long list.
Wisconsin doesn't consider demonstrated interest in admissions at all — visits and follow-up emails won't move the needle here.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section C7 (admissions factors)
Wisconsin just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Wisconsin essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
44.6% of Wisconsin classes have fewer than 20 students.
44.6%
under 20 students
32.1%
20 to 49
23.3%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Wisconsin CDS 2025–26, I-3.
18:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
49.1%
first-years from out of state
25%
live on campus
9%
of men in fraternities
8%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- White58.6%
- Asian10.8%
- Hispanic9%
- Multiracial4.8%
- Unknown / other3.8%
- Black2.8%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Wisconsin CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
76% of Wisconsin students graduate in 4 years.
76%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
89.7%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
96.3%
return after first year
Finishing late means paying for extra semesters, so the 4-year rate is the one that shows the cost.
Students with Pell Grants
85.7% finish in 6 years, against 89.7% of all students.
A 4-point gap: Pell Grant students finish less often than students overall.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Madison.
Madison is a state capital and a university town occupying the same ground, which is rarer than it sounds — the campus and the seat of Wisconsin's government sit at opposite ends of the same street.
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The city is built on an isthmus between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona, so water is genuinely part of daily life rather than a view: students sail, swim and skate on it depending on the month. State Street is the eight-block pedestrian spine of bookshops, music venues and restaurants connecting the two ends, and the farmers' market that rings the capitol square is among the largest in the country. What you should not underestimate is the winter, which is long and genuinely cold.
The City
Mid-size city
Madison, WI
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
John Muir
Naturalist and founder of the Sierra Club, whose campaigning led to the national park system. He studied here from 1861 to 1863 without taking a degree; Muir Knoll on campus is named for him.
Frank Lloyd Wright
The most influential American architect of the 20th century. He enrolled in engineering here in 1886 and left before finishing, and built Taliesin, his home and studio, 40 miles west at Spring Green.
John Morgridge
Chief executive and later chairman of Cisco Systems through the period it became the backbone supplier of the commercial internet.
Class of 1955
Joan Cusack
Two-time Academy Award-nominated actor, who came to Madison to study English before joining Saturday Night Live.
Class of 1984
Steven Levitan
Co-creator and showrunner of Modern Family, who studied journalism here and worked at the campus paper before writing for television.
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
Jump Around
Between the third and fourth quarters at Camp Randall Stadium the House of Pain song plays and the entire student section jumps in unison, hard enough that the movement registers on seismographs at the university's geology department.
The Memorial Union Terrace
Sunburst-patterned metal chairs on a lakefront patio, open since 1928. It functions as the campus living room from the first warm day of spring until the lake freezes, and it is where most of the university's social life actually happens.
The Wisconsin Idea
The century-old principle that the university's work should reach every part of the state, not stop at the edge of campus. It is the stated reason behind much of the outreach and extension work students end up doing here.
Weekend escapes from Madison
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Madison
Devil's Lake State Park
45 minutesQuartzite bluffs above a spring-fed lake, and the most-visited state park in Wisconsin — the standard escape for hiking and climbing.
Taliesin, Spring Green
45 minutesFrank Lloyd Wright's own home and studio, open for tours, in the valley his family farmed.
Milwaukee
1 hour 30 minutesThe nearest big city, on Lake Michigan — museums, a bigger music scene, and the closest pro basketball and baseball.
Chicago
2 hours 30 minutesThe big-weekend trip, and the international airport for students flying home overseas.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Dane County Regional Airport (MSN)
15 minutes from campus
For international flights: Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) — about 2 hours 30 minutes by road.
Pro sports nearby
- Green Bay Packers NFL
- Milwaukee Bucks NBA
- Milwaukee Brewers MLB
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Madison's own job market is unusually deep for a city its size, and it runs on two things: health technology and biosciences. Epic Systems, whose software holds the medical records of most hospital patients in the country, is in Verona just southwest of the city and hires heavily from here; Exact Sciences and Promega anchor a genuine biotech cluster, and state government supplies a steady stream of policy and public-health work. Milwaukee is 90 minutes away and Chicago 2 hours 30 minutes, which puts consulting and finance recruiting within reach of a weekend.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Epic Systems
- Exact Sciences
- American Family Insurance
- Promega
- UW Health
Madison itself for health tech and biosciences; Milwaukee is about 1 hour 30 minutes east and Chicago about 2 hours 30 minutes southeast
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
Wisconsin is a 939-acre flagship built on the isthmus between two lakes, and its 39,193 undergraduates spend a lot of their lives off campus — only 25% live in university housing, and about 9% of men and 8% of women join Greek life. The practical effect is that the centre of gravity is Madison itself: State Street runs from the bottom of Bascom Hill to the state capitol, and the Memorial Union Terrace on Lake Mendota does the job a student union does elsewhere. A student who wants a contained campus that organises its social life for them should weigh that honestly; a student who wants a city they can actually live in has few better options. It is also less of a home-state school than its price suggests — 49.1% of this year's entering class came from out of state against 45.1% from Wisconsin. Academically it runs at research scale — an 18-to-1 student-faculty ratio with 44.6% of sections under 20 students — and social sciences accounts for 13.8% of the bachelor's degrees it confers, just ahead of business at 12.2%. The trade-offs are financial and specific: Wisconsin meets 88.0% of demonstrated need rather than all of it, borrowers leave owing $28,931, and while 89.7% of students finish within six years, 76.0% finish in four.