Wisconsin Prestige

Linsey
Fri, 13 Jan 2006 16:32:54 +0000

Kinkosmom-

I live about 20 minutes from downtown Madison and am very familiar with the university. I must warn you that Madison is very, very liberal and conservative folk are very much a minority. Madison is a great city. It has two beautiful lakes (but you can’t swim in them b/c they have some nasty green bacteria growing in them…yuck!) and really terrific restaurants. One of my favorite things about Madison is the Summer Farmer’s Market on the square. The University, including residence halls, have an urban feel and the campus is sprawling. Partying is huge at UW-Madison. Have you heard about Halloween on State Street? It is complete craziness and the Madison police use pepper spary to calm the crowds at around 3 a.m. Pretty crazy. Wisconsin athetics are great. The remodeled football stadium is beautiful and the Kohl Center, where they play basketball, is also first- rate.

I applied to UW-Madison and have been accepted but do not intend to matriculate. For starters anyone with decent grades from my school goes there and I kind of want to get away. The biggest drawback for me is that is is so big. There are over 40,000 students, the campus is huge, and introductory classes can have 600 students. It is certainly the best school in the state, but I would agree that the education at Berkeley, Michigan or Virginia might be better. Wisconisn is still great though. I would highly suggest visiting because Wisconsin has a certain feel that is not right for everyone. To make Wisconsin seem smaller, I would suggest living in one of the Lakeside dorms or the all-women’s dorms. Hope this helps!