Firstly, Madison in the summer is a gorgeous place.  The Union Terrace (right by the lake) is amazing, there are always bands playing outside everywhere, interesting people to see, as well as a beautiful campus.  The winter is more of a different story, and beginning in the middle october, everything begins to change, this lasts pretty much all the way to may.  VERY FEW people are out, it is very difficult to go to class because of the freezing cold and rather large campus.  I found myself second semester scheduling all my classes after another creating very long days so I would not have to walk in the cold as often.  I noticed the summer is when I seem to love Madison and think it is the greatest place on earth, and in the winter (mostly when we are in school) I tend to not like it very much. 

Very few people in Madison are politically active.  I would say a large part (almost all) of the student population is either from a rural town in Madison, or from a very economically wealthy family from New York or New Jersey.  Additionally, the more rural, Wisconsin kids tend to live in the Public dorms, and all of the New York/Jersey kids live in the Private dorms (where I lived).  Honestly, I've found the Wisconsin kids are much more friendly than the New Yorkers (this is not saying that ALL of them are unfriendly, but definitely a higher percentage than the Wisconsin kids).  Although I am out of state from an upper-class suburb of a large city, it was pretty difficult to make friends in the private dorms because I am not from the East Coast.  The public dorm kids are pretty much on the opposite end of the spectrum.  VERY midwestern, not exactly very intellectual, although because Madison is a big school I'm hoping to join more clubs this next year to find more intellectually stimulating people.  But you kind of do have to look for them.  Many people I ran into did not question many things about the world, and were definitely at UW - Madison just to say they “went to college”, not exactly to learn. 

Socially, I never really met any non-drinkers, so I cannot really comment on the non-drinking aspects of Madison.  I think the city provides a good amount of non-alcoholic activities, you just have to look for them.  My weekends consisted of pretty much the same thing every night - studying (we do study quite a lot here) until 10 at night, getting ready, pre-gaming around 11, 11:30 heading to bars, 2:00 (bar time) heading to a house party, then coming home anytime after then.  Basically, at the parties I've been to, the kids mostly want to get drunk and “hook up” with someone.  This can be fun at first, but it gets old after awhile and I find myself connecting little with the friends I actually go out with because of this.  They are just “people I go out with” rather than people who really mean something to me. 

Academically, what you get out of class depends on the program.  Freshman year I had a lot of huge lectures.  It's hard to make friends in the big classes, but if one takes English 100, or the other required freshman class, it is a little easier to make friends.  You definitely have to study if you attend Madison.  Even “bullshitting” your way through requires a good amount of work.  Even my friends who were known as the extreme “partiers” and “slackers” spent a good few hours doing work every day (including weekends). 

The city of Madison can be very averagely midwestern if one does not find political activity (which is kind of what happened to me).  There are A LOT of white people, especially at UW.  I think we only have 800 black students out of 30,000 or so, and if you subtract all the football and basketball players, it makes for quite a small african american population.  Coming from a big city, it honestly is a little overwhelming to see so many white people in one place.