UW (Madison) - for international exchange student

Hello everyone,

Next year hopefully I can fulfill one of my wishes since I was a kid, experience the American college life. I know because of the pandemic college life is different now.

But let’s just imagine September 2021 everything goes back to normal and my exchange is good to go. So forget about the pandemic and consider this to only be relevant if life goes back to normal.

I have a hard time choosing between the University of Wisconsin or the University of Florida.
Some factors in my decision:
-I don’t really care about the academic side, that does not play a factor in my decision.
-Money is not a issue, since I’m an exchange student, I still pay the same money to my current university and nothing to the Uni I’m visiting.

  • I’m only staying for one semester (6 months)

I really want to experience the full American college life. This means partying a lot, living in a dorm on campus, be really involved in social life etc. I know both schools are big so they must have a great social life but I have no idea what the difference is etc. For example how important is the greek life if you want to party a lot? Or are the bars and clubs enough?

I’m a huge football fan which I why I decided to choose a school with a big football (sports in general) program. Sports play a very big role in my life so the more it is involved in campus (sport clubs etc.) the better.
I also want to travel during my exchange but I don’t know which city has better travel opportunities (for example I know people visiting UF usually visit NO and Orlando, and UW go to Chicago etc.)

Since both schools seem so similar, the only difference I can really find is the weather, since I’m from Europe, I seem to sway more towards UF because of the weather. I also heard that UF has more diversity in its students, which sways me towards UF as well.

I would really appreciate if you guys could give me some tips, thanks everyone!