Surprisingly, for students from the warmer West, Wisconsin winters actually are a feature that draws students to the school, rather than driving them away.
'Yes, winter consists of flip-flops and light sweaters in California,' said Alyson Beckman, a UW-Madison freshman from Agoura Hills, Calif., 'but I wanted to experience real weather, including the changing leaves of fall and yes, crazily enough, even winter.'
Simply put: 'Snow. I wanted snow and seasons. I needed a change from southern California,' said Ilana Rosenberg, a UW-Madison freshman from Calabasas, Calif.
Whether or not freezing winters were part of their hometown experience, for most of these students, the Midwest proved to offer a bigger change than just climate.
'I knew I wanted to live in New York, L.A. or Chicago later,' said Julia Briggs, a UW-Madison sophomore from New York, 'so I wanted to get out and be somewhere I'm probably never going to live again.'
Stephanie Chang, a UW-Madison freshman from Palo Alto, Calif. had similar reasons for leaving the coast and coming to Wisconsin.
'I really wanted to ... experience something different,' she said. 'Going to any of the UC's is basically the 13th grade.'
And for some, it was even the truth found in the old 'Midwest-nice' stereotype that made UW-Madison the winning choice.
'I decided to visit and found that people in the Midwest are just so much nicer than in the West,' said Seth Bell, a UW-Madison freshman from Agoura Hills, Calif.
Last but not least on most of these students' list was the draw of being in the Big Ten''the big rah-rah sort of thing,' as Briggs put it.
For Bell, Division I athletics was 'the icing on the cake.'
