by our College Data Analytics Team
College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities in its annual rankings and ranks them in a variety of ways, including most diverse, best overall quality, best for non-traditional students, and much more.
University of Wisconsin - Madison was awarded 132 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is marketing.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
UW - Madison landed the #40 spot in College Factual's 2025 ranking of best overall colleges in the United States. The higher ed experts analyzed 2,152 colleges and universities across the nation to determine this ranking. This puts it in the top 5% of all schools in the nation.
UW - Madison is also ranked #1 out of 46 schools in Wisconsin.
See all of the rankings for University of Wisconsin - Madison.
The acceptance rate at University of Wisconsin - Madison is a competitive 49%, so make sure you take your application seriously when putting it together. Even leaving out a minor detail could be a reason to move you to the rejection pile.
About 17% of students accepted to UW - Madison submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 650 and 730. Math scores were between 690 and 780.
Learn more about University of Wisconsin - Madison admissions.
The student to faculty ratio is often used to estimate how much interaction there is between professors and their students at a college or university. At University of Wisconsin - Madison, this ratio is 18 to 1, which is on par with the national average of 15 to 1. That's not bad at all.
Another measure that is often used to estimate how much access students will have to their professors is how many faculty members are full-time. The idea here is that part-time faculty tend to spend less time on campus, so they may not be as available to students as full-timers.
The full-time faculty percentage at University of Wisconsin - Madison is 84%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
University of Wisconsin - Madison has a freshmen retention rate of 94%. That's a good sign that full-time students like the school and their professors enough to want to stick around for another year. It's also a sign that the admissions team did a good job in choosing applicants who were a good fit for the school.
The on-time graduation rate for someone pursuing a bachelor's degree is typically four years. This rate at UW - Madison for first-time, full-time students is 66%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at University of Wisconsin - Madison.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 32,688 undergraduates at UW - Madison with 30,063 being full-time and 2,625 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $3,964 | $4,687 | $9,152 | $21,842 | $25,866 |
The net price is calculated by adding tuition, room, board and other costs and subtracting financial aid.Note that the net price is typically less than the published for a school. For more information on the sticker price of UW - Madison, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
It's not uncommon for college students to take out loans to pay for school. In fact, almost 66% of students nationwide depend at least partially on loans. At UW - Madison, approximately 26% of students took out student loans averaging $9,299 a year. That adds up to $37,196 over four years for those students.
Get more details about paying for University of Wisconsin - Madison.
See which majors at University of Wisconsin - Madison make the most money.
Get more details about the location of University of Wisconsin - Madison.
Contact details for UW - Madison are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 500 Lincoln Dr, Madison, WI 53706-1380 |
| Phone: | 608-263-2400 |
| Website: | www.wisc.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Computer Information Systems | 1,062 | $80,566 |
| Economics | 714 | $54,495 |
| Health & Physical Education | 596 | $29,866 |
| General Biology | 519 | $35,798 |
| General Psychology | 495 | $31,985 |
| Finance & Financial Management | 491 | $68,681 |
| Ethnic Studies | 448 | $28,841 |
| Natural Resources Conservation | 437 | $28,824 |
| Public Health | 416 | NA |
| Political Science & Government | 391 | $42,063 |
Online learning is becoming popular at even the oldest colleges and universities in the United States. Not only are online classes great for returning adults with busy schedules, they are also frequented by a growing number of traditional students.
In 2022-2023, 11,783 students took at least one online class at University of Wisconsin - Madison. This is a decrease from the 12,834 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 11,783 | 1,384 |
| 2021-2022 | 12,834 | 1,459 |
| 2020-2021 | 41,428 | 21,672 |
| 2018-2019 | 7,274 | 850 |
Learn more about online learning at University of Wisconsin - Madison.
If you’re considering University of Wisconsin - Madison, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against UW - Madison? Pit them head to head with College Combat, our free interactive tool that lets you compare college on the features that matter most to you!
Footnotes
*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.
References
More about our data sources and methodologies.