University of Wisconsin–Madison

The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public land-grant research university founded in 1848, the year Wisconsin became a state. It is the flagship of the Universities of Wisconsin system. The campus covers about 930 acres along the southern shore of Lake Mendota, a short walk from the state capitol. Its public-service mission is known as the Wisconsin Idea, the principle that university research should benefit the whole state.

The university has 13 schools and colleges. They include the College of Letters and Science, the College of Engineering, the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the School of Medicine and Public Health, the Wisconsin School of Business, the Law School and the School of Education. It is best known for biochemistry, genetics, economics, sociology, education and the agricultural sciences. The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, created in 1925, manages university patents. James Thomson isolated human embryonic stem cells here in 1998. Major research centers include the Morgridge Institute for Research, the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and the Space Science and Engineering Center.

UW–Madison enrolls about 50,000 students, and roughly 12,000 of them are graduate and professional students. International students from more than 120 countries make up about 10 percent of enrollment. Alumni include John Bardeen, twice a Nobel laureate in physics, author Joyce Carol Oates and architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who studied engineering here.

The Graduate School oversees research doctorates and master's degrees across the university. Doctoral students are usually funded through teaching, research and project assistantships and fellowships. The Teaching Assistants' Association, formed in the 1960s, is one of the oldest graduate employee unions in the United States. The academic year runs on semesters. Madison is the state capital, with about 280,000 residents, and the lakeshore is part of daily campus life.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, University of Wisconsin–Madison lists 285 graduate programs across 53 subjects: 148 master's programs and 131 doctoral programs, with the widest choice in health & medical sciences, biology and languages & linguistics. University of Wisconsin–Madison holds rank 38 in the GSN Overall University Ranking.