<p>Over the years I have talked with hundreds of people that have spent four years or more in Madison Wisconsin and I have yet to find one that did not enjoy their time there. </p>
<p>Madison has been consistently named as one of the most livable cities in the United States, for which it has received many awards. In 1996, Madison was ranked by Money Magazine as the #1 place to live in the country. In 1998, Money Magazine rated Madison as the #1 city in the Midwest. And in April 2002, the Ladies Home Journal named Madison #1 best (small) city for women.</p>
<p>Arizona State University's Barrett Honors College program was my backup in case all else failed. It seems win-win to me; get to do in-depth studying with some of ASU's top profs and you're in Tempe where the temperature never goes under 60!</p>
<p>oh, well there you go. Shows you how much I know...
maybe I just dont like the green bay packers.
and U-Wis is HUGE, so if you dont like HUGE schools, dont go there. Other than that, reidm sounds pretty solid</p>
<p>Wisconsin is hardly Siberia. For the past two weeks it has been in the 60's-70's and it does not usually get very cold until late December. No worse than New England and a lot more to do than most of those tiny college towns. The lakes are great for recreation 9 months of the year and the school has a huge fleet of sailboats, sailboards, kayaks etc. at your disposal.</p>
<p>I would recommend the following schools as "good bets" based on your stats and what you say you want in a school. All have EXCELLENT programs in the areas you are interested in and will provide you with a good solid education, even though they are "safety" schools).</p>
<p>The University of Delaware, the University of Wisconsin (Madison is a great college town - I, for one, wouldn't mind spending 4 years there! And, it offers an excellent science and history education) , the University of Michigan (for the last two, great bets if you apply early in the fall as they are on rolling admissions), the University of Oregon, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Washington, and, if you want a few private schools: Tulane, Lawrence U in Wisconsin, Trinity U in San Antonio, Texas, and the College of Wooster in Ohio. Not all in cities but all excellent for chemistry and history. Some other suggestions specifically for environmental science (although these are good for chem and history as well): Lewis & Clark (Oregon), Humboldt State (Calif - one of the best environmental science programs in the country, also excellent for chem), University of Vermont, and UC Santa Cruz or UC Santa Barbara.</p>
<p>thanks for all your replies. I think I'll apply to UW for sure. Also I'm thinking about Tulane, and U-Delaware. However, I will work hard to get into my real dream schools. Anyways can you apply ED and apply to a school which has rolling admissions at the same time? Are you disqualified for ED then?</p>
<p>Yes, you can applying to a rolling admissions school like Wisconsin and an ED school. There is no rule against that and I recommend doing so actually. However, as you probably already know, if you get in to your ED school, you must withdraw all other applications AND acceptances from other schools. The U of Wisconsin would be an excellent good bet school for you and is very strong in all of the programs you are interested in. You might think about using the U of Michigan as your other good bet. However, apply early in the year to both in order to make them true good bets - they start filling their classes early. By doing so, you may even have heard back with positive results before you send in your ED application, which will make the nail-biting wait for ED news a little easier. Best of luck - it sounds like you are on target.</p>