The University of Wisconsin–Madison Graduate School is committed to data transparency about student experiences and employment outcomes. This page provides data highlights, links to interactive data dashboards, and information about national data initiatives in which UW–Madison is a partner.
Admissions and enrollment
For fall 2019, the admission rate was 30%. The enrollment (yield) rate was 46.9%. Admissions and enrollment information for individual programs is also available through the links below.
Doctoral student funding
In fall 2019, 85% of PhD students had funding through UW in the form of graduate assistantships and fellowships. Other students generally rely on a combination of funding sources including external funding, employment, personal savings, and loans.
Degrees awarded
UW–Madison granted over 2,900 graduate degrees in 2019-20 (735 PhD degrees, 2,173 master’s degrees), with a median time to degree of 6 years for a PhD degree and 1.8 years for a master’s degree.
Doctoral career outcomes
PhD alumni 5 years post-graduation held careers in a variety of sectors, including in academia (59% of PhD graduates), for-profit industries (28%), government (6%), non-profit organizations (2%), and other fields (5%).
Data Resources & Requests for Campus Users
University faculty and staff can access a wide variety of campus data resources related to graduate education at UW–Madison including data reports, interactive data visualizations, and data queries. More information on these resources can be found in the Graduate School KnowledgeBase.
Student data
The Graduate School Explorer contains aggregate data on admissions, enrollment, student funding, degree and program completion rates, and doctoral career outcomes. NetID login is required.
Note: To use the Graduate School Explorer, you must have access to “Student Restricted” data. To request access, complete the Office of Data Management request access web form.
The Graduate Admissions Competitor Landscape visualization presents data on the national postsecondary institutions competing with UW–Madison graduate programs for new student admissions. Dashboards display the institutional enrollments of new graduate admits over the past five years as well as the reasons reported by admits for not accepting UW–Madison graduate program offers of admission.
Survey data
The Graduate School administers three required student surveys: the Doctoral Exit Survey, the Master’s Exit Survey, and the Doctoral Student Experience Survey. To access survey data, click on the corresponding link below.
- Doctoral Exit Survey (NetID login required)
- Master’s Exit Survey (NetID login required)
- Doctoral Student Experience Survey (NetID login required)
Can’t find what you need?
University staff and campus researchers wishing to request a specific data report or product not otherwise available should use our data request intake form. To complete the form you will first need to log in to your campus G Suite account.
About Our Data Projects
The Graduate School is involved in a number of data projects that seek to improve data collection and transparency about graduate admissions, enrollment, funding, career outcomes, and more.
Understanding PhD Career Pathways for Program Improvement
UW–Madison is part of a multi-institutional grant aimed at collecting and making transparent data about PhD students’ career aspirations and alumni outcomes. The data will be used to strengthen career support and initiate an employment tracking system to extend into the future.
Coalition for Next Generation Life Science
Recognizing the lack of clear marketplace information on career options for life scientists, UW–Madison joined eight other research universities and a major cancer institute to form a coalition that has publicly posted career outcomes data for biomedical scientists.
Data publications
In the news
Survey shows diverse career preferences among UW–Madison PhD students
The Graduate School has released its first data brief from the Understanding PhD Career Pathways for Program Improvement project, sharing a glimpse into the career preferences of PhD students at UW–Madison.
August 19, 2019New data on UW–Madison graduates support value of college degree
A University of Wisconsin–Madison pilot project is providing new insights into the economic well-being and career progress of its graduates. The project looks at the median earnings of UW–Madison graduates — by area of study and degree level — one, five and 10 years after graduating. The data are available on UW–Madison’s website.
April 24, 2019New tool makes Graduate School data interactive, aligns with national transparency efforts
As prospective graduate students plan their educational pathways, accessible data about graduate institutions is increasingly valuable to inform those decisions. A new, interactive tool from the Graduate School now makes existing data available in a user-friendly format.
March 28, 2018- More data news >>