As for the students, I think it's about the same anywhere you go; some are nice and some are just plain rude or arrogant.  There's pretentious moronic people and there's fun people, you choose who you like.  It's fairly easy to make friends if you live in the co-ops or do some extra curricular activities and there's various hobby/activity/religious/political groups to join outside of campus as well.  There's also a lot of beer pong, drinking, bratwurst, and cheese curds too.  Yes, and there's plenty of eye candy and uh... private and personal stuff.

While the city and the campus are beautiful, safe, clean and well-maintained, there's not much to it if you're not a student or graduated.  Yes, there's a couple of highly overpriced pseudo-ethnic restaurants, bars, parties, football games, the capitol building, farmers' market, and the lakes, but it mostly feels like a holiday resort town.  During summer and Christmas, Madison empties out to a ghost town as many of the students come home for the holidays. 

Also, most people after graduation leave to bigger cities as there aren't very many jobs available in the area.  Let me mention that it took me four months before I could get a part-time job. 

Oh, and the city is surrounded by cow farms on that note.