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Graduate Programs & Services at the University of Wisconsin–Madison

Graduate School Data

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.

Data resources for faculty and staff >>

Explore the Data

Admissions and enrollment

For fall 2020, the admission rate was 31%. The enrollment (yield) rate was 37%. Admissions and enrollment information for individual programs is also available through the link below.

Admissions and Enrollment bar chart showing 18,538 students applied, 5,808 were admitted, and 2,147 students enrolled for fall 2020.

Doctoral student funding

In fall 2020, 87% of PhD students had full funding through UW in the form of graduate assistantships and fellowships. Other students generally rely on a combination of funding sources such as external funding, employment, personal savings, and loans.

PhD Student Funding pie chart data for fall 2020 shows 36 percent of PhD students were research assistants, 30 percent were teaching assistants, 13 percent had other funding, 12 percent were fellows, 4 percent were project assistants, and 4 percent were trainees.

Degrees awarded

UW–Madison granted over 3,100 graduate degrees in 2020-21 (2,406 master’s degrees, 729 PhD degrees), with a median time to degree of 5.8 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 (53% of PhD graduates), for-profit industries (34%), government (6%), non-profit organizations (6%), and other fields (1%).

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

Understanding UW–Madison PhD Career Pathways: Career Preferences, Outcomes, and Alignment

Published August 2019

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