The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public land-grant research university. It was founded when Wisconsin became a state. They do a lot of research and have a ton of undergrad majors. With 33,506 undergraduate students, Madison is on the large side. Their acceptance rate is around 60% however, that varies for in and out-of-state applicants. Their supplement is only one question and it’s one that we’ve seen again and again. So we wanted to give our tips and tricks about how to approach the University of Wisconsin–Madison supplemental essay.
Tell us why you decided to apply to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition, please include why you are interested in studying the major(s) you have selected. If you selected undecided please describe your areas of possible academic interest. (you may enter up to 650 words). *
Our first rule here is don’t let them trick you. Don’t choose undecided. Take a best guess. What would you probably want to study given your interests? Go with that or a related field. Don’t worry, no one is going to hold you to this essay. Let’s say you talk about bio and then find a love of art history freshman year. They aren’t going to throw this essay back into your face. Choosing a major is important information for admissions officers, however. They want to build a good class with a diversity of academic interests and undecided students don’t help them do that.
Once you have chosen a major, it’s time to introduce your passion for that major. We suggest starting your essay with a personal story about how you fell in love with your topic. If you want to study art history, maybe it’s going to the museum with your dad every Sunday. If you want to study Poli-Sci, maybe it’s volunteering as a phone banker for a local candidate. Introduce to us what sparked your passion. Once you have, you can talk about how that spark led you to wanting to study the subject in College and more specifically at Madison. For example, let’s say going to the museum led you to take AP art history and do a research project that made you fall in love with the academic pursuit. The more defined your spark and path are, the better, but keep it short. It should only be about a paragraph.
Once you have introduced your major, it’s time to back up why you want to study it at Madison. You need specifics to do this. Do some research into the major and the department. You should be able to list two higher-level classes in the department and why you are excited to take them. What do we mean by higher-level classes? Intro classes are usually the same at most schools. You want to be able to shout out classes that are specific to Madison. These classes are usually marked in the 300s or 400s as opposed to intros which are mainly in the 100s and sometimes 200s.
After you have mentioned classes, talk about a professor who you would want to do research with. Talk about their research and why it interests you. You can also talk about anything that has come up in your research that feels unique to the department or even Madison academics at large. This could be department-specific honors or research but you can also speak to opportunities like specific study abroad programs or Madison’s popular first-year interest groups. Anything you choose to talk about should be Madison-specific. Don’t talk about business school generally, talk about Madison’s School of Business and its opportunities and approaches.
The majority of this essay should be about academics, but once you have fully covered academics, you can speak to other opportunities that also excite you at Madison outside of class. We advise students to mention at least one club/extracurricular and to have that club be connected to something that they are already doing. For example, if you are on your high school paper, maybe you want to join Moda Magazine once on campus. The activity doesn’t have to be a 1-to-1 match, but choosing something related to something you already do gives you a chance to show off some of your passions outside of class.
This prompt has a high word count, so feel free to mention other on-campus opportunities if you see other specific things that drew you in on campus. Just avoid anything that feels general or disconnected. For example, most colleges have a beautiful campus… you don’t need to tell them that, but talking about a specific center might be a good call. Madison is big on school spirit as well so mentioning traditions or how you would interact with campus spirit is a great thing to add.
You can also speak to Madison as a town. The university is pretty much in the middle of town and right on a lake. You can talk about why this placement or even the city itself appeals to you.
The point of this essay is to show that Madison is the school for you and how you would be a great fit at Madison. If you can do that you are golden. You don’t need a huge conclusion, but you should restate how well you and Madison will fit together!
Madison gives you a lot of words to show your interest. You need to really do your research. Taking time to research specifics will set you up well to tackle this essay. If you give yourself the time to do it and follow our formula, you should have no problems on your journey to being a Badger!
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