eliotstanton

Welcome to MDTP Leuco! I agree that looking for a place in Madison can be a difficult one especially when you don't have the luxury of easily looking at the apartments first. Have you looked at applying for University housing? Eagle Heights doesn't seem that fancy, but it is (very) quiet and the rents are reasonable by Madison standards, however they have a no cats and dogs policy which is unfortunate. Alternatively, a lot of grad students seem to end up living by the Capitol, where parking is difficult (i.e. you're going to be paying monthly for a spot) but life if otherwise pretty good and you're centrally located to most things. I just checked Craigslist and I see a couple of flats in that area around $700/month. There are a large number of apartment buildings currently being built right next to campus which I suspect are very, very undergrad-y, and also very expensive. The flipside is that other areas just a mile or two from campus seem to be increasingly depleted of students. A lot of people are very negative about the area around Allied Drive on the south side of the city as this is a socioeconomically challenged area. However, these things are relative and depending on where you are coming from the "bad area" of Madison isn't really that bad. Likewise, there's a sketchy area on the east side by Rt 30 and East Washington (Worthington Park) that I wouldn't recommend. Also, it seems like everyone hates the apartment management companies and Madison Property Management in particular for screwing people out of their security deposits.

They have a thing here where all the undergrads madly scurry to sign leases early in the academic year. Also, traditionally leases by campus all run from the middle of August instead of the first of the month. Most of this only applies for housing that's dominated by students so there (hopefully) shouldn't be issues with finding somewhere to live if you're not aiming to live next door to campus. If all else fails, I suppose a less than ideal option to consider would be renting somewhere away from a bus line and just driving your car to the bus and busing in. We used to have a postdoc in our lab who did this everyday.

G/G VG/VG VG/G - Not much constructive criticism unfortunately, however think I should have emphasized broader impacts more heavily. Reviewer #1 placed the title of my research proposal as the explanation for IM. Congratulations to everyone who received a fellowship.

Pearcema, welcome to UW-Madison! It can be tough to find something reasonably close to campus and reasonably inexpensive, particularly if you have a cat, a dog and a car. I live on the east side of town (isthmus) and it's about a 20 minute commute by bus for me everyday to my building on campus. I don't mind the commute much because I live right on the bus lines, which makes getting downtown fairly easy, I would recommend trying to find something close to the bus line since walking 10-15 minutes to the bus stop only to wait 10 more minutes because the bus is late when it's 5F outside would, in my opinion, be unpleasant. I'm personally a big fan of the east side and would suggest taking a look over there (on the isthmus) as well as the south side. As far as specific apartment buildings I'm afraid I can't offer up much advice, I've lived in part of a house since I moved here and liked it since it means fewer neighbours, more of a community feel etc. Let me know if you have any more questions.

Hi everyone, I am a current grad student at UW-Madison, transitioning from finishing a MS degree to starting a PhD in the Microbiology Doctoral Training Program this autumn. Please feel more than free to shoot me any questions you have about the city of Madison or UW. I will do my best to try and answer any and all of your questions.

Many apartments in the campus area here at UW-Madison have a move-in date on August 15th. It's rather epic and known as Hippie Christmas due to the massive amounts of stuff that is left on the sidewalks for people to pick over. That said, there are also plenty of apartments that don't run on that schedule, but I would start looking around on the Internet now to try and get something organized by the end of this month at the very latest.