Lol please share anything good options you find im not from Wisconsin so I will be doing the same.
tl ; dr
This seems to be the best resource I've found so far, it's basically like any other apartment searcher but it's for Madison specifically and has some cool features..
Before I say anything I should say that everyone I've talked to currently living there says that housing applications for Fall 2022 opened in October of
this year.. meaning we're behind.. in fact a lot of the "best places" they told me about are already full. Also, most leases start Aug 16th, and at SMPH I'm pretty sure we would start our "pre-med bootcamp" thing literally 1 or 2 days after that.
More preamble you can feel free to skip... I'm a non-trad and native cheese head. I think one thing people from outside of Wisconsin may be surprised by, specifically those unaware of student culture at places like UW-Madison or other Wisconsin campuses, is how much drinking happens here.
41 of the top 50 drunkest counties in the United States are in Wisconsin, and that culture carries over a lot in college towns, of which Madison and Eau Claire, where I am now, are at the top of those lists. That paints a lot of what I'm going to say, and I understand that I'm the weird one here trying to avoid it. Most people who are going to matriculate will be ~22 and still likely want some of that lifestyle.. you'll have it in spades. That said..
To reiterate:
This seems to be the best resource I've found so far, it's basically like any other apartment searcher but it's for Madison specifically and has some cool features.. On advice from folks here I started looking at
housing from UW-Madison for grad students specifically. I was almost sold on Eagle Heights until I heard horror stories
1,
2,
3 of things like them using Eagle Heights, a grad/family focused housing development, for things like housing undergrad students with COVID, or the serial sexual assaulter that preyed specifically on the Eagle Heights area for months, etc.
Parking is an entirely other hurdle. You can use the bus lines, specifically the 80,82 routes and if you live within a mile of campus you'll very likely be able to reliably use them to get anywhere you need. There is also the
Park and Ride where you park in a couple areas near different parts of campus and you can take a shuttle to campus from that location. The park and ride seems like a great option for people who find housing outside of the bus-lines and/or have a car they need to use (which we will). You buy a specific permit to use the park and ride and from what I have gathered the parking spots aren't assigned but there is ample parking.
I've gotten a bunch more information about which neighborhoods are party central for undergrads, and which neighborhoods tend to be a bit more chill/grown-up, but I haven't been able to parse through it all yet, and frankly I probably won't until I actually hear back about my interview. That said I would be silly not to mention all the new housing developments on the Isthmus. You'll find them in the very first link I showed you, they are around $1200-1500 for a 1-bedroom, some of those include parking and some don't. That price may seem steep, but it's kind of a grim reality of Madison.. compared to the rest of the state, the only place with worse rent prices are parts of Milwaukee.
edit: as an example using the link I showed you,
Park Place Apartments is a prime location with good amenities and parking included.. but with the applications being open for 2 months already, all of their studio, 2 bedroom, 3 bedroom, and 4 bedroom units are already taken. And their 1-bedroom units start at $1375. Moving down the line a bit to a place like
Kingston Place, the price drops a tiny bit but you forgo having your own laundry units, in-wall PTAC units instead of central air, I see reviews of people on reddit saying the walls are thin, etc.. You get the idea, and if you want to go much further, say below $1,000, then you supply your own AC unit, get no laundry, and have street-parking if you are lucky.. and if you're a non-trad like me who had more than a single room worth of furniture, sacrifices will need to be made.
