I live 45 min from Madison and am a UW alum. While Madison is a small city, it’s an hour from Milwaukee, 2 hours from Chicago, and 4 hours from Minneapolis/St Paul. Still, being able to visit one of these larger cities on weekends doesn’t make up for being able to be right in Boston. I agree with the other posters-don’t get hung up on the rankings-both schools are good academically. Focus more on the campus environment you want and whether you would rather establish a professional network in Boston or Madison. Something else to possibly consider is Wisconsin overall is not doing well economically, and the governor and state legislature have made significant cuts to UW’s budget and have weakened tenure. As a result 34 tenured professors left last year and 200 others considered leaving. https://www.google.com/amp/fox6now.com/2016/10/14/uw-madison-spends-24m-to-keep-200-professors-from-leaving/amp/