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UW-Madison Essay Example from an Accepted Student

With over 30,000 undergraduates, the flagship university of the Wisconsin public system is known for its top-tier academics, high-achieving sports teams, party life. The University of Wisconsin Madison is considered one of the best 50 schools in the nation, thus making gaining admission a difficult task. You’ll need more than good grades to get into this school—your essays will have to shine as well. 

In this post, we will share a real essay an accepted UW Madison student submitted. We will also go over what this essay did well, and where there is room for improvement.

Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized. 

Read our UW Madison essay breakdown to get a comprehensive overview of this year’s supplemental prompts.

Essay Example – Why UW Madison, and Why This Major? 

As a student from Wisconsin, I have grown up with a high degree of exposure to discussions surrounding the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As a result of the assortment of compliments I frequently heard describing its academics, I have always held the university in high regard.

Additionally, I have heard of the stellar location and value that comes along with the university being in the state capital. Through the combination of the two previous factors, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has become the center of my search for my ideal college experience. While exploring further, however, I have found that there is more about the university that causes my desire to attend. From the array of libraries and study spaces, a large student body in which I can find like-minded people, to the excellent campus I saw during a visit, there are countless aspects about the university that I find alluring. However, one element of the university stands out from the rest— the Wisconsin Idea.

I would describe myself as curious due to my constant attempts to learn new information; the more knowledge about current or former events I can achieve, the better. When a person has consistent access to accurate, unbiased information, I believe they can grow as a person, academically or socially. As new information is gathered and shared, new ideas can develop.

These novel ideas can lead to innovation and problem-solving. Unbiased and unpersuasive reports allow for thinking for oneself, forcing originality. I am interested in entering the field of journalism because of its capacity to prompt these thoughts. Beyond any encouragement of self- reliance, journalism can be an agent of change. Through reporting on issues afflicting society, widespread awareness is created. A society’s recognition of its problems enables attempts to fix them through methods such as civic engagement. Through these characteristics of journalism, better people and communities develop, showing its connection to the Wisconsin Idea. A bettering of society is something meaningful to me, and I believe journalism is the pathway to do so. The University of Wisconsin-Madison will allow me to explore all my interests involving journalism.

Growing up, I appreciated the coverage of sportswriters, from national writers such as ESPN’s Jeff Passan to local writers such as University of Wisconsin-Madison alumnus Curt Hogg with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The work of these sportswriters is also valuable to society, helping provide moments of respite from the stresses of life. Through the sports communication certificate program, I will be able to discover if this branch of journalism is the niche meant for me.

Additionally, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has the resources that will allow me to succeed in journalism. Being in the journalism program with a focus on reporting and multimedia journalism, I will be able to strengthen my ability to inform the public in conjunction with the Wisconsin Idea. Education on how to vet sources and how to properly engage with audiences will allow for the merging of reporting with the mentioned principles and values. Through the university, I am confident that I will be able to leave a positive mark on the world.

I know that the University of Wisconsin-Madison will be able to cultivate my interests and help me grow as a person. Through the totality of its resources and classes, I will be well-prepared for my career as a journalist and ready to contribute positively to society.

What the Essay Did Well

Since this essay combines the “ Why School? ” and “ Why Major? ” supplements, it’s important to answer both questions while still ensuring the essay feels like one cohesive unit. This student has done exactly that, by highlighting the Wisconsin Idea and using that thread to tie his ideas together throughout the essay. That anchor also allows for a smooth transition between the student’s interest in the school and their interest in the major.

In addition to doing an excellent job crafting a unified essay, the student gives a lot of background on their decision to major in journalism, which shows that they are a thoughtful, dedicated student who is prepared to get the most out of a Wisconsin education. They start off by telling us why they see journalism as important in the big picture: “ Through these characteristics of journalism, better people and communities develop, showing its connection to the Wisconsin Idea. ” 

But in the next paragraph, they zoom in from the abstract ideals of journalism, to their personal interest in sports journalism specifically. By mentioning particular sportswriters they find inspiring, plus the “ focus on reporting and multimedia journalism ” they aspire towards, we get a more detailed picture of how they will contribute to the world of journalism, which is further evidence that this is a motivated student who is prepared to hit the ground running in college.

Although this essay is more detailed when answering the “Why Major?” question than the “Why School?” one, that isn’t a huge issue because they bring in school-specific programs while discussing their major. That, in effect, answers the “Why School?” question, because this student would not be able to get the same education in journalism at a different school. As highlighted at the beginning of this section, this essay’s biggest strength is that seamless blend of school opportunities and the student’s interest in journalism as a major.

What Could Be Improved

There are two weaknesses to this essay: the response to the “Why School?” half of the prompt, and the lack of personal details.

As noted above, the student does a good job of addressing “Why School?” in the part of their essay that focuses on “Why Major?” but the essay would be even stronger if they took some time to answer “Why School?” directly.

The first two paragraphs are in theory doing that, but they are wildly vague and provide few substantive examples of why UW Madison is a good fit for this student. As a rule of thumb, the school’s reputation and location, generic resources like libraries, and general campus aesthetic are not valid answers for why you want to attend, because lots of other schools have strong reputations, good locations, beautiful libraries, etc.

Instead, when answering this prompt you want to hone in on opportunities that can only be found at that school and explain how they connect to your current interests or will help you accomplish your goals. That shows admissions officers that you want to attend their school specifically, rather than that you’d be happy at any college in a state capital.

A better response would have looked something like this: “I look forward to sitting in on panel discussions hosted by UW’s Center for Journalism Ethics and working under Professor Culver to broaden my perspectives when I report on difficult topics like racial injustice, a topic which has particularly contentious in Wisconsin since the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha. ”

This version shows that the student already has a clear, concrete vision of how they would fit into UW Madison’s campus community, which in turn gives admissions officers a more detailed sense of what this student would bring to their school. 

This version also shows how the student being from Wisconsin makes them a stronger applicant than someone from another state, as they have a personal understanding of the same issues that have affected UW Madison. The original essay, in contrast, only showed that being from Wisconsin has helped the student know the school better, not how them being from Wisconsin would benefit UW Madison.

The other issue with this essay is that the reader learns very little about the student’s background and personality. Broad statements like “ A bettering of society is something meaningful to me, ” and “ Growing up, I appreciated the coverage of sportswriters, ” don’t have enough detail for the reader to understand this student, as these two statements could be true of thousands of other applicants. Remember, the whole point of the essay is to distinguish yourself from students whose more objective metrics, like grades and extracurriculars, are similar to yours.

A stronger essay would accomplish that by providing insight into the emotional connection this student has to journalism. Rather than vaguely stating that sports journalism “help[s] provide moments of respite from the stresses of life,” it would describe how the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s riveting coverage of the Milwaukee Bucks’ championship season gave the student something joyful to think about even as their grandfather’s dementia was worsening. 

Without that personal connection, even if admissions officers know what the student is interested in and even some of their beliefs about the world, they won’t know who the student truly is at their core. That deeper layer of understanding is what would take this essay from good to great.

Where to Get Feedback on Your Essay

Do you want feedback on your University of Wisconsin essays? After rereading your essays countless times, it can be difficult to evaluate your writing objectively. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

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University of Wisconsin-Madison: Supplemental Essays 2023-24

September 6, 2023

The University of Wisconsin—Madison has joined the ranks of other premier flagship universities that high-achieving teens from all around the country/world now line up for a chance to attend. Like  UVA,   UNC—Chapel Hill , and the  University of Michigan , UW-Madison requires its in-state residents to sport excellent grades and test scores. Further, it has an even higher bar for out-of-state hopefuls. This makes the University of Wisconsin – Madison supplemental essay more important than ever before.

 (Want to learn more about How to Get Into UW-Madison? Visit our blog entitled:  How to Get Into the University of Wisconsin-Madison: Admissions Data and Strategies   for all of the most recent admissions data as well as tips for gaining acceptance.)

In evaluating applicants, the University of Wisconsin—Madison places a strong emphasis on the quality of one’s essays. Below are UW-Madison’s supplemental prompts for the 2023-24 admissions cycle along with our advice for creating a needle-moving admissions essay.

2023-2024 University of Wisconsin-Madison Supplemental Essay Question—Common App

The following prompt is the only supplemental essay that students will encounter when applying to UW-Madison via the Common App:

Tell us why you decided to apply to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition, please include why you are interested in studying the major(s) you have selected. If you selected undecided, please describe your areas of possible academic interest. (650 words max)

Prospective Badgers face a two-parter here. You are tasked with presenting a compelling case as to:

1) Why you want to attend UW-Madison.

2) Why you have picked your particular academic discipline.

University of Wisconsin Madison Supplemental Essay (Continued)

As you move through the “Why Us?” and “Why this Major?” portions of this essay, consider taking some of the following steps to address why UW-Madison is the perfect fit for you  and  why you are the perfect fit for UW-Madison:

• How did your interest in your major of choice begin and how has it matured over the years?
• How do you pursue knowledge about your subject of interest? Talk about sources of learning (teachers, podcasts, books, news, etc.).
• While pursuing your majors(s)/interest(s) of choice, how will you take advantage of the university’s immense resources both inside and outside of the classroom? Be sure to cite specific academic programs , professors,  research opportunities , internship/externship programs ,  study abroad programs , etc. Discuss why they pique your interest.
• How will you be an active, contributing member of the Badger student body? What special talents and passions will you bring to the University of Wisconsin-Madison? Check out this list of nearly  1,000 student-run organizations  on campus.
• Lastly, show evidence of how your past/current endeavors (academic and extracurricular) will carry over onto UW-Madison’s campus.

Again, if you are applying through the Common App, this essay will be the only supplement you need to worry about. However, if you elect to apply via the UW System Application (as some in-state students applying to multiple UW campuses do), you need to address the next prompt as well.

2023-2024 University of Wisconsin-Madison Supplemental Essay Question— UW System Application

(Only for students applying through the UW System Application)

This part is all about you. Tell us about something you’ve done — academically or personally — and what you’ve learned from it. Was it a success or a challenge? Did it represent a turning point in your life? How did this particular moment in your life influence you, and how will it continue to influence you as you pursue your college education? (650 words)

This open-ended prompt is a platform from which you can share more about an academic or extracurricular achievement, chronicle a challenge/obstacle you overcame, or just share a meaningful event in your life.

No matter which route you choose, what truly matters here is that you use this essay as an opportunity to reveal something deep and important about yourself. Use the questions provided— Was it a success or a challenge? Did it represent a turning point in your life? How did this particular moment in your life influence you, and how will it continue to influence you as you pursue your college education?— to guide your content. It’s clear that UW-Madison is interested in both short- and long-term influence. Accordingly, before you start writing, do some brainstorming to make sure that the experience/event/achievement that you chose can satisfy all aspects of the prompt.

Remember, these essays will be your best chance to forge a human connection with an admissions officer since UW-Madison is too large a school to offer you an interview. In sum, be honest, vulnerable, sincere, and reflective in your essay and the result will be a compelling composition that will ultimately aid your admissions chances.

How important is the essay at the UW-Madison?

The essays are “very important” to the University of Wisconsin–Madison admissions committee. The only other factor rated this highly is the rigor of one’s secondary school record. GPA, recommendations, and state residency are rated as “important.” In other words, the University of Wisconsin is clearly very interested in the quality of your essay. Therefore, we can conclude that the admissions committee will weigh your essays heavily in their evaluation of your candidacy.

Want Personalized Essay Assistance?

Interested in working with one of College Transitions’ experienced and knowledgeable essay coaches as you craft your University of Wisconsin—Madison supplement? We encourage you to get a quote  today.

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Tips for Writing a Better Essay

Write like you, about you.

Your UWs realize you’re still young. You’re a work in progress. That means no matter how well you did in high school, what matters most is the challenges you faced and how you responded. It’s also worth saying that while your instincts probably tell you to puff up your accomplishments and go big, bragging is never interesting. Give yourself permission to just be you when you write.

Questions to get you started

• What are your 2 biggest academic achievements?
• What are your 2 biggest personal achievements?
• What are your 2 biggest strengths?
• What were your 2 biggest challenges?
• What are the 2 biggest obstacles you’ve overcome (and how did you do it)?
• What are your 2 biggest failures (and what did you learn)?
• What beliefs have you challenged (why, and what did you learn)?

ESSAY BASICS

• Write your essay in a program like Microsoft Word or Google Docs so you can simply copy and paste it into your online application.
• Keep your essay between 250 and 650 words (UW–Madison requires all essays to strictly follow these guidelines).
• Ask a friend or teacher to look for inconsistencies, grammatical mistakes, and typos.
• Proofread, proofread, proofread. You don’t want some small mistake to accidentally make it look like you don’t care.
• Proofread again.
• Tell your UWs something about yourself that you can’t capture in the application.
• Jump off the bandwagon. Don’t write what you think your UWs will want to hear. Let your UWs know about what drives you.
• Use your own voice. Ask someone you trust to read your essay to see if it “sounds like you.”
• Be short and sweet. Clear, concise writing matters more than length.
• Show, don’t tell. Be specific and factual.
• Write about your real life. Don’t exaggerate or embellish (you’d be surprised at how well your UWs can smell baloney).
• Be confident. Skip all the maybes, sort ofs, I thinks, and so on.

Essay Questions

Check out the actual questions from your UWs that you’ll need to answer in your essay.

University of Wisconsin-Madison 2024-25 Supplemental Essay Prompt Guide

Early Action: Nov 1

Regular Decision Deadline: Jan 15

University of Wisconsin-Madison 2024-25 Application Essay Question Explanation

The Requirements: 1 essay of 650 words (or less)

Supplemental Essay Type(s): Why

Tell us why you would like to apply to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition, please include why you are interested in studying the major(s) you have selected. If you selected undecided please describe your areas of possible academic interest. (You may enter up to 650 words, but 300-500 is recommended).

This sneaky prompt is a twofer, though both parts cover classic why essay territory: admissions wants to know just what appeals to you about the University of Wisconsin-Madison. So, take a moment to look inside. What exactly do you want out of your college experience? Research opportunities? Weekend football games? To dip your toe into city life? Now, if you were to imagine a Venn diagram of your expectations and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s offerings, what would land in the overlap? The only way to know for sure is to do your research!  

The goal is to show admissions that you’ve done your homework. Make sure Admissions Officers know that you’ve already thought about what you want to do when you get there and that you’re ready to act on those hopes and dreams and so forth. 

But, wait, there’s more! The second part of the prompt gives you the opportunity to include information about specific academic programs at Madison that appeal to you. So just as before, utilize the school’s website, but this time pay careful attention to the specific majors and academic offerings that catch your eye. What do you love about your chosen major and/or minor? If you’re interested in UW’s Gender & Women’s Studies pr ogram, can you describe what you will take away from this program and how it relates to your long-term ambitions ? How did you become interested in this field, and what resources does Madison provide that will help you achieve your goals? Finally, if you’re undecided, think about what makes Madison the ideal environment for your academic exploration. How do you plan to hone in on the perfect major as you attend? Remember, the more details you include, the better.

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How to Write the University of Wisconsin–Madison Supplemental Essays 2023–2024

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The University of Wisconsin–Madison , home of the Badgers since 1848 , is known as a formidable research institution with high expectations for their applicants. Their storied alumni include Senator Tammy Baldwin, astronaut Laurel Clark, author Joyce Carol Oates, naturalist John Muir, and many others. Looking to become a Badger? First, you’ll need to write your UW-Madison supplemental essays. Let’s dive in.

University of Wisconsin–Madison’s 2023-2024 Prompts

UW-Madison asks for two essays, but you might only need to complete one of them. The first prompt is only applicable to students applying through the Universities of Wisconsin Application. So, if you’re applying through the Common App, you only need to worry about the second essay. The second essay is required for all applicants.

Note that although the essays can both extend to 650 words, the admissions team recommends planning for a 300-500 word essay. Keeping your essay(s) concise, at least in the initial draft(s), could enable you to add extra details in your later drafts if needed. Without further ado, here are the prompts for the UW-Madison supplemental essays:

Universities of Wisconsin Application Essay:

• This part is all about you. Tell us about something you’ve done—academically or personally—and what you’ve learned from it. Was it a success or a challenge? Did it represent a turning point in your life? How did this particular moment in your life influence you, and how will it continue to influence you as you pursue your college education?

Required Essay for All Applicants:

• Tell us why you would like to attend the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In addition, please include why you are interested in studying the major(s) you have selected. If you selected undecided, please describe your areas of possible academic interest.

General Tips

Both of these essays permit more words than the average college essay. Apart from the Common App personal essay, which has the same word count maximum of 650 words, most college essays tend to be less than 500 words, with most required to be less than 300. Therefore, the UW-Madison supplemental essays present some challenges, but also some freedoms.

With longer supplemental essays, students tend to either have trouble writing too much, or not writing enough. To tackle the first problem, it can be helpful to restrict yourself to a smaller word count for the first draft. Then, if you later realize anything essential is missing, you have the space to add it in. In order to keep the word count down, focus on avoiding passive voice, cutting down on your conjunctions (use punctuation marks instead), and using more concise verbs. For instance, “I thought” is more concise than “I was thinking.” Little changes like this one can help your whole essay shrink to fit the space it’s allotted.

To tackle the second issue of not writing enough, look for areas where the reader might have questions. If you have a description in your essay, make that description more vivid. If you jumped through a narrative, consider providing more of the interim steps. Remember, though, your essay can be 300 words without any penalty. As long as you comprehensively answer the question asked by the prompt, you’ll be okay.

Universities of Wisconsin Application Essay

This part is all about you. tell us about something you’ve done—academically or personally—and what you’ve learned from it. was it a success or a challenge did it represent a turning point in your life how did this particular moment in your life influence you, and how will it continue to influence you as you pursue your college education (650 words or fewer).

You choose: would you prefer to answer this essay prompt or complete a Common App personal essay? If you choose to write the Common App personal essay, skip ahead to the next prompt. Note that the latter is a more flexible option. Your Common App personal essay can be used for thousands of different college applications. That said, the admissions team at UW-Madison don’t maintain a preference for one essay over the other. The choice is yours.

If you choose to answer this prompt, you can approach it pretty similarly to how you would a Common App personal essay. In this particular essay, you have the opportunity to show who you are as a person. Specifically, the admissions team wants to hear about an accomplishment you’ve achieved, or a challenge you’ve overcome. In other words, an act in your past that has shaped the person you are today.

Provide the past, present, and future of this accomplishment or challenge. What did you do, how has it made you the person you are today, and how it will it impact your future? The topic of your essay can be big or small, but it should be meaningful to you.

When beginning this essay, you may want to start with an outline. If possible, use a narrative structure for this essay, given that it should be based around a single “success or a challenge,” to use the wording of the prompt. Your outline doesn’t need to be linear: you can start with the challenge or achievement, describe how you see it impacting your future, and then return to discuss its past and present impacts on you. If you choose to take a linear approach, though, this might be the easiest strategy for a first draft. Either way, organization is key!

University of Wisconsin–Madison Required Essay

Tell us why you would like to attend the university of wisconsin–madison. in addition, please include why you are interested in studying the major(s) you have selected. if you selected undecided, please describe your areas of possible academic interest. (650 words or fewer).

This is your “Why University of Wisconsin-Madison?” essay. For this kind of essay, research is your friend. First, identify your prospective area(s) of study. Then, look up specific courses, professors, programs, and other opportunities in your department(s) of interest that will be available to you if you attend UW-Madison. Next, identify any non-academic reasons that UW-Madison is a school on your college list. These reasons should be specific to UW – Madison . Lastly, structure your essay around these details that you have researched.

Ideally, your essay does not merely list the opportunities at UW-Madison to you. Instead, your essay goes a step further and expresses why these opportunities excite you and how these opportunities will help you achieve your goals. Your reasons for applying to UW-Madison should have some unique elements. Without any unique elements, the admissions team might not see why UW-Madison is a better fit for you than another school. In other words, you might leave the reader feeling that you are not eager to attend UW-Madison and excited about the education they offer.

Specificity is important in this essay. By sharing why you specifically would like to attend UW-Madison, and your specific reasons for wanting to attend, you demonstrate interest . According to UW-Madison’s Common Data Set , their admissions team does not track each student’s level of interest in attending the University. Therefore, this essay might be your only opportunity to show the UW–Madison admission team how excited you are to attend. Bring your passion for UW–Madison and your well-researched, specific pieces of information to this essay, and you’ll do great.

If you need help polishing up your UW-Madison supplemental essays, check out our College Essay Review service. You can receive detailed feedback from Ivy League consultants in as little as 24 hours.

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How to Write the University of Wisconsin-Madison Supplemental Essays

Tell us why you decided to apply to the university of wisconsin-madison. in addition, please include why you are interested in studying the major(s) you have selected. if you selected undecided please describe your areas of possible academic interest. (you may enter up to 650 words, but 300-500 is recommended)..

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s supplemental essay is a great opportunity to showcase your voice to the admissions committee and convey your academic passions and knowledge of the school. When writing your UW-Madison supplement, be sure to address both parts of the prompt: explain your interest in the majors you’ve selected and discuss what draws you to UW-Madison. UW-Madison generously provides a word count of up to 650, so you have ample space to elaborate on the past experiences and values that have led you to your area of study, and also write about the school-specific resources at UW-Madison that you would like to take advantage of during your undergraduate career.

Before you begin drafting your UW-Madison supplemental essay, you’ll want to do some “why school” research. UW-Madison offers 20+ schools with many niche majors and certificates ; therefore, you’ll want to spend some time on the website to identify the specific program that is the best fit for you. If UW-Madison offers programs that can’t be found at any other universities that align with your interests, you can cite these and make an even stronger case for why UW-Madison is the best school for you! Some particular academic strengths of UW-Madison include its programs in Education, Agriculture, Communication, Biological Sciences, Social Sciences, Business, Engineering, and Economics. You can look through the web pages of specific departments and schools, and see if there are general resources that are well-suited to you. For instance, UW-Madison’s Integrated Liberal Studies programs, Living-Learning Communities, First Year Interest Groups, and Honors programs integrate communal life with academic pursuits in a way that may be appealing to you.

As with any “why school” essay, you’ll want to not only cite school-specific resources, but also share what you know about the school’s values and reflect upon how these values align with your own. UW-Madison often emphasizes the “Wisconsin Idea”, or the idea that a successful state university should inspire its students to seek truth and apply the resulting knowledge to benefit themselves and society. UW-Madison students are highly involved with their communities and the causes that matter to them. In your UW-Madison supplemental essay, you’ll want to explore how your academic and personal journey to date has reflected the principles of the Wisconsin Idea, and discuss which academic course of study, extracurriculars, and other opportunities at UW-Madison will put you in a position to serve others and bring positive change to society.

If you apply with the UW System Application, you will need to answer the following prompt:

This part is all about you. tell us about something you’ve done—academically or personally—and what you’ve learned from it. was it a success or a challenge did it represent a turning point in your life how did this particular moment in your life influence you, and how will it continue to influence you as you pursue your college education.

If you apply to UW-Madison through the UW system rather than the Common Application, this is the equivalent of the Common Application’s personal statement. Unlike the Common App, you won’t get a choice of prompts to respond to–you must answer this question, and the “why school” supplement if you are applying to UW-Madison.

For this UW essay, carefully examine the wording of the prompt before you dive into writing. UW admissions readers are looking for you to discuss something you’ve actively done rather than something that’s happened to you, so to select a strong topic, you’ll want to reflect on any memorable accomplishments, initiatives you started, intellectual interests you’ve pursued, or risks you’ve taken in the past four years. These can be in the context of your academics, extracurriculars, or personal life. Then, it’d be best to gravitate towards a specific moment–rather than a story that covers a long span of time–and select one that was highly influential in determining your academic path, personal values, or worldview.

This is a multi-part prompt, so ensure that you are answering each question within the prompt. You should respond directly to all parts of the prompt, including “something you’ve done,” “what you’ve learned,” “how did this particular moment in your life influence you,” and “how will it continue to influence you [in college].” While you don’t need to answer the questions of “success or challenge” or “turning point” in language that’s as head-on (e.g. sentences like “My accomplishment was a success” or “This was a turning point for me”), it should be very clear and obvious to admissions readers whether you’re writing about a success or challenge, and how that event worked as a turning point in your life.

If you have already written a personal statement for the Common Application, you’re in luck if you’ve responded to prompt #2 (“The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?”), prompt #5 (“Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.”), or potentially even prompt #3 (“Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?”). There is significant overlap between these prompts and UW’s, so it’s likely that you can recycle your Common App essay with some light modifications. In particular, make sure that you add material that addresses the final part of the prompt, discussing how the moment you selected will influence your approach to your journey as an undergraduate. That being said, if you’ve already written an essay for the Common App, we definitely recommend applying to UW through the Common App! Best of luck with your UW-Madison essays!

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How to write the university of wisconsin-madison essays 2020-2021: the complete guide.

Wisconsin may not be home to New York City, but if your heart desires a sprawling campus with countless ways to enjoy the outdoors, look no further than the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

It has an acceptance rate that hovers around 51%.

The university sits on 936 acres – that’s not a typo, folks – it’s really that huge. The campus is located between Lake Mendota and Lake Monona.

Beyond a range of academic programs, the university offers extensive opportunities to play sports, join clubs, and participate in on-campus and community activities. Applying to the University of Wisconsin-Madison can be done either through the Common App or directly through the UW website .

What are the University of Wisconsin-Madison supplemental essay requirements?

Two essays are required for admission to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Click above to watch a video on Wisconsin Madison Supplemental Essays.

If you apply through the Common App, you will have to answer question #2 below, in addition to the first question.

If you apply through the UW System Application, you will need to respond to both of the following:

1 ) Tell us about something you’ve done—academically or personally—and what you’ve learned from it. Was it a success or a challenge? Did it represent a turning point in your life? How did this particular moment in your life influence you, and how will it continue to influence you as you pursue your college education? 2) Tell us why you would like to attend the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In addition, please include why you are interested in studying the major(s) you have selected. If you selected undecided, please describe your areas of possible academic interest.

In the UW System Application, the maximum word count allowed is 650 words. However, according to the “Application Tips” page on the UW website, admissions prefers for you to plan for 300-500 words.

Note: If a university publishes an application tips page, follow it precisely. Not only will your application be stronger, but admissions will be able to tell you did your research.

Wisconsin – Madison Supplemental Essay 1: Academic & Personal Achievements

1 ) Tell us about something you’ve done—academically or personally—and what you’ve learned from it. Was it a success or a challenge? Did it represent a turning point in your life? How did this particular moment in your life influence you, and how will it continue to influence you as you pursue your college education?

Before writing this essay, it’s important to note that UW isn’t looking for a resume or laundry list. Don’t get trapped into writing a list of achievements.

It’s important to the admissions committee to understand the story of your achievements. In order to tell that story, you must begin to analyze what you’ve accomplished and learned from those achievements.

Therefore, we must identify the two separate pieces to this prompt.

• Your academic and personal accomplishments.
• Lessons learned from those achievements and challenges.

As you begin to break down your accomplishments, think about the communities, projects, academic pursuits, extracurricular activities, and teams to which you’ve contributed. UW suggests developing your thoughts with an outline before you begin writing.

Don’t limit yourself to academic or official accomplishments. Also consider your contributions to:

• Religious institution (ex. church, mosque, synagogue)
• Volunteer organization (ex. Meals on Wheels)
• Neighborhood/city/county/state

For each of these communities, brainstorm people/places/ideas/events you believe often go unnoticed and are important to you. 

Don’t get hung up on language. “Achievements” and “accomplishments” are subjective. You can also write about small personal victories and contributions that led to a greater result. All told, you don’t need to have won a ribbon or trophy to justify your action as an achievement.

When brainstorming achievements, consider creating a bubble map for a visual representation of your ideas. If you’re digitally savvy, you could use a tool like Bubbl.us to create your map.

Once you have a detailed list , start narrowing down your choices by considering what is most important to you.

• The more you care about a pursuit, the more you will be able to write about it and convey your passion.
• Again, don’t shy away from topics that are strictly personal to you – that’s what this essay is all about!

Your goal is to find an accomplishment or string of achievements that are closely related.

• Did you take care of a sick sibling while mom worked to pay the bills?
• Were you a founder or leader of an extracurricular activity that grew by 15% during your high school career?
• Did you raise $200 for a political campaign or charity that worked on issues you care about?

Now that you’ve identified achievement(s), it’s time to start drafting an essay. Context is always important when you are writing to strangers.

• Start your essay by providing some background information, a cold hook, or a quote.

While context is important, do keep it short. You want to save the majority of your word count for explaining why the achievement is important to you.

The second part of the essay is critical:

• UW – Madison wants to know how you’re a better person for having achieved or struggled?
• And how will you bring that change to their campus?

Don’t be afraid to talk about your challenges—in life, failure and struggle are often the best teachers.

You spent the first part of your essay introducing and describing your achievement. This includes the actions you took to succeed (20- 25% of your essay).

Now, spend close to 30-40% of the essay explaining what you learned from those accomplishments. If you’re having trouble thinking of how you changed, brainstorm these questions:

• What qualities did I need to display to accomplish this goal?
• How am I a better person for having gone through this challenge?
• What qualities of mine can I improve?
• Were there qualities that I did improve?

Once you’re done with this part, it’s time to move to the last part of your essay: explaining how you’ll implement your lessons learned into your education. Spend the rest of your essay on:

• Describing how your learning pattern has changed
• Your newfound appreciation for teamwork
• Developing a conceptual understanding of a field
• A budding curiosity of a teaching style
• Affirmed passion for an educational vector

Whatever you choose, make sure you’re telling UW – Madison that you’re a developing student who is looking forward to implementing your lessons learned on campus.

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Wisconsin – madison supplemental essay 2: why this school.

2) Tell us why you would like to attend the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In addition, please include why you are interested in studying the major(s) you have selected. If you selected undecided, please describe your areas of possible academic interest.

In the second essay, you will have to address why you applied to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and what you hope to get out of the academic experience.

The first part of this prompt is fairly standard and, if you’re applying to multiple universities, it should start to sound familiar.

However, your response to the question shouldn’t sound familiar to UW’s admissions committee. Instead, your answer must be tailored to you and the University of Wisconsin-Madison specifically.

• The litmus test for this requirement is to read through your final draft and ask: Could this essay be submitted to any other university other than the University of Wisconsin?
• If you answered “yes,” you need to revise .

The best way to prepare for this essay is to perform research. This, by the way, is not only beneficial for your essay but will also help you to get an idea whether this school is the right fit for you.

• First, browse through the University of Wisconsin-Madison website.
• Don’t stop at the admissions page. Explore the plethora of information on academics, research opportunities, sports, clubs, daily living, and so on.
• Search for more information about UW on college review websites, which often feature testimonials from current students.
• If possible, go to the campus for a tour to see in person what the university has to offer.
• Most important: Research the academic program you’re interested in. Explore professors, projects, fellowships, internships, career counseling, grants, and public-private partnerships.

All of the above research will fuel your essay and give you concrete reasons to help you describe why you are applying to the school. When writing your essay, try to focus on one significant reason or a few reasons instead of just a single superficial idea, such as “academics” or “because I’m receiving a swim scholarship.”

As a rule, never write about one of the following topics:

• Social life

Then, think about what you want to get out of your college experience and how your future goals are related to obtaining a degree.

When describing your reasons for applying, use detail, and then link those details back to your professional or academic goals.

Admissions officers want to see that their university is an important channel that will help you achieve your college and career goals.

Even if you have yet to decide on a major, you should address this question through the lens of your academic interest(s). Consider both your research and academic/extracurricular history.

• What majors or academic programs are you interested in pursuing? What you write about now isn’t final, so don’t worry if you waver between different subjects. Choose a subject.
• Are there research programs or co-ops for which you are interested in applying?

Perhaps you are really interested in medicine and engineering, leaning toward pursuing biomedical engineering. You could take a look at the senior design courses where you work in a team with a clinician or industry professional to create a product.

When writing your essay, link back to previous ideas and your big-picture goals.

Let the university know that they’re the perfect fit, and you are passionate and enthusiastic about their program offerings.

• Don’t write about what you think they want to hear.
• Instead, be honest and allow the admissions committee to see your interests and values through your response.
• Ultimately, what UW – Madison has to offer needs to relate to you.
• Don’t spend too much time complimenting their academic offerings. Trust me, they know they’re a great school. They want to know why you think you’re a good fit.

We strongly recommend that you include the following elements in your essay:

• A short introductory story or hook that explains your interest in the field, major, or program.
• Toward the end of your essay, explain your professional ambitions and how you’d use your UW education to contribute to your community, country, or the world.

Here’s an outline of a “Why UW – Madison” essay that effectively answers this prompt:

• Your parents were never interested in community politics and barely ever voted. A few years ago, a local politician approved the building of a large chain store near your home, which lead to increased pollution and traffic in your community.
• You canvassed to stop the construction, but it wasn’t enough. You didn’t get enough signatures. Still, this process sparked your love for politics. You realize that your parents were mistaken.
• You want to study in UW – Madison’s political science program because you’re interested in increasing voter turnout. UW has a fellowship and multiple research programs in this vector.
• After explaining how you’d take advantage of a fellowship and research opportunity, you want to become a community organizer. UW will help you do that.

Conclusion: Writing the University of Wisconsin – Madison Supplemental Essays

Before submitting your essays, you should definitely check out the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s page of Application Tips . There you’ll learn more about the university’s vision and advice for applying.

In regards to essays, here’s a short list of the university’s advice:

• Plan for 300-500 words, although the maximum is 650
• Revise, proofread, and share your writing with a peer/trusted adult
• Be honest and authentic in your writing

If you have questions that are particular to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s requirements, they welcome you to contact them directly.

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, uw madison essay - how to approach.

Hello! I'm applying to UW Madison and would like some advice on writing an extraordinary essay for my application. What are some techniques or ideas you've used to make your essay stand out?

Hello! Writing an extraordinary essay for UW Madison (or any college) can seem challenging, but with some creativity and insight, you can make your essay stand out. Here are some techniques and ideas to consider:

1. Start with a Hook: Begin your essay with an engaging anecdote, quote, or unique statement that will immediately grab the reader's attention and make them curious about your story.

2. Show, Don't Tell: Instead of simply stating your achievements or experiences, use vivid and descriptive language to paint a picture of the situation. This will help the reader visualize and connect with your story on a deeper level. For example, if you're writing about a volunteering experience, describe the sights, sounds, and emotions you felt during the activity.

3. Be Authentic and Personal: Don't try to replicate what you think admissions officers want to hear. Be honest about your experiences and share what truly matters to you. Reflect on how those experiences have shaped you as a person, and how you have grown or learned from them.

4. Choose a Unique Angle: Find a specific aspect or perspective that sets your story apart from others. This could be a unique interpretation of a common topic, a detailed look into a niche interest, or an unusual experience that has shaped your worldview.

5. Connect to UW Madison: Show how your experiences or values align with the university's mission, culture, or academic programs. This will demonstrate your genuine interest and fit for the school.

6. Edit and Refine: Write multiple drafts and ask for feedback from friends, teachers, or family members. Incorporate their suggestions to polish your essay and bring out your unique voice.

7. Focus on Structure: Organize your essay in a clear and logical manner with a strong introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. Each paragraph should build on the previous one and provide a coherent overall narrative.

To learn more, read this blog post: https://blog.collegevine.com/how-to-write-the-university-of-wisconsin-madison-essays/

Remember that the purpose of the essay is to give the admissions team a glimpse into who you are as a person beyond your grades and test scores. By incorporating these techniques, you can create an extraordinary essay that truly stands out. Good luck with your application!

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University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) Supplemental Essays Guide: 2021-2022

Not sure how to approach the UW-Madison essay prompts? With tips from an Ivy League graduate, CollegeAdvisor.com’s guide to the UW-Madison essay prompts will show you exactly how to write engaging essays for your UW-Madison application and maximize your chances against the UW-Madison acceptance rate.

Want help crafting your UW-Madison essay prompts? Create your free  account  or  schedule a free consultation  by calling (844) 343-6272.

UW-Madison  Supplemental Essay Guide Quick Facts:

• The UW-Madison acceptance rate is 57%— U.S. News  ranks UW-Madison as a  competitive  school.
• We recommend answering all UW-Madison supplemental essays comprehensively and thoughtfully.

What is the acceptance rate for the University of Wisconsin-Madison?

According to U.S. News, the UW-Madison acceptance rate is 57%. Last year, over 53,000 students applied to the school, which was a  17% increase  over the previous year. While the UW-Madison acceptance rate increased temporarily to about 60%, the normal rate falls near 57%. Like most schools, UW-Madison was  test-optional  last year in response to COVID. This year, they’ve continued the test-optional policy. Admissions experts believe that changes in testing requirements have caused the spike in applications that most schools have experienced.

So, what does this mean for you? Well, it does indicate that the UW-Madison supplemental essays will be an important part of your application. Without mandatory test scores and given the rise in applications, admissions officers will pay more attention to other aspects of your application.

In other words, for your best chance against the UW-Madison acceptance rate, we recommend that you take time to make sure that your responses to the UW-Madison essay prompts reflect your strengths.

Additionally, remember that the UW-Madison acceptance rate is not the only factor to consider when building your school list. Make sure that you’re looking at schools holistically. For more information on how to evaluate the UW-Madison acceptance rate (and more details on the data behind acceptance rates), read  our article .

What is the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s ranking?

The UW-Madison ranking is #42 in  National Universities , according to U.S. News.

Other U.S. News UW-Madison rankings: the UW-Madison ranking in  Best Undergraduate Teaching  is #71; UW-Madison ranking in  Best Value Schools  is #81; and the UW-Madison ranking in  Top Public Schools  is #14.

In terms of specific programs, the UW-Madison ranking is #15 in  Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs , and the US Madison ranking is #19 in  Nursing .

Finally, the UW-Madison ranking is #64 in  First-Year Experiences .

These are just some of the UW-Madison rankings. However, a school’s rankings should not be the only thing you take into consideration when compiling your college list. You should also consider other factors—including the school’s location, programs available, and size—when you look at schools. The UW-Madison rankings are not the only important factor in deciding to apply.

Keep in mind that the best college for you may not be the one you expected! There are a lot of different resources available when it comes to researching colleges; be sure to consult a few to ensure you create a comprehensive list.

Need help creating a college list? Check out our resources on the college list process  here .

Does the University of Wisconsin-Madison require essays?

Yes. In addition to the  Common App   personal essay, there are specific UW-Madison essay prompts. The UW-Madison supplemental essays differ depending on how you submit your application. The Common Application and  UW System Application  are available for all applicants. You will be required to write a “Why UW-Madison” essay no matter how you submit your application.

Need tips on writing your Common App essay? Check out our  blog article .

How many essays does the University of Wisconsin-Madison require?

In addition to the Common Application Personal Statement, there is one required UW-Madison essay that all applicants must complete: the “Why UW-Madison” essay.

However, if you apply through the UW application portal rather than the Common App, you will have to submit a second UW-Madison essay. This second essay functions as a replacement for the Common App essay. If you apply via the UW application portal, give yourself ample to complete both UW-Madison essay prompts.

Does the University of Wisconsin-Madison care about essays?

Yes, all colleges care about your essays, UW-Madison included. The UW-Madison essay prompts are a great chance to show admissions officers something new about yourself. When responding to the UW-Madison essay prompts, you will want to demonstrate that you would be a great fit for their UW-Madison. This is especially true when writing the “Why UW-Madison” essay. This is referred to as demonstrated interest (DI). DI is a tool the admissions officers use to determine how interested a student is in attending their particular school. By writing specific “Why UW-Madison” essays, students can show their DI in attending UW-Madison and increase their admissions odds.

The high UW-Madison ranking indicates that students may apply just because of UW-Madison’s prestige. In response to this, admissions officers will be on the lookout for students whose interest in the school runs deeper than its reputation. For more information on DI and how to use it to your advantage, check out this article from  Forbes .

Finally, in light of the UW-Madison acceptance rate, well-crafted responses to the UW-Madison essay prompts will strengthen your application. Don’t underestimate the UW-Madison essays and their impact.

Does the University of Wisconsin-Madison have a “Why UW-Madison” essay?

Yes. This is the classic supplemental essay question, and the UW-Madison essay prompts are no exception—all colleges want to know what makes them special to you. The “Why UW-Madison” essay is your chance to showcase any research you have done about UW-Madison while you’ve been writing your UW-Madison supplemental essay or as you’ve been completing the rest of the application.

Given the UW-Madison acceptance rate, your research will be an important part of acing the why UW-Madison essay. Why? When it comes down to two candidates with similar GPAs and extracurriculars, a strong “Why UW-Madison” essay can be the determining factor in who is admitted.

UW-Madison Essay Prompts – Question 1 (required)

Tell us why you decided to apply to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition, please include why you are interested in studying the major(s) you have selected. If you selected “undecided” please describe your areas of possible academic interest. (650 words maximum).

How do I write a good essay for UW-Madison?

The rest of this guide will show you how to write engaging UW-Madison supplemental essays.

Let’s start with the first UW-Madison essay, which is required of all applicants. You have 650 words to respond to this why UW-Madison essay, which is the same length as the Common Application’s personal statement. You should be prepared to spend a fair bit of time both researching and writing this UW-Madison essay, considering its length.

For this UW-Madison essay, avoid over-generalizing with statements like “The campus is beautiful” or “I just feel like I belong there.” Instead, offer concrete examples of why you belong there. You should do research into specific aspects of the UW-Madison community that appeal to you.

This UW-Madison essay prompt has two parts. First, the prompt asks why you decided to apply to UW-Madison. Then, it asks why you are interested in your chosen academic field. You’ll want to ensure you respond to both parts of the question. If you are undecided in your major, you will still want to address your academic interests and explain how attending UW-Madison would help you to hone these interests and discover a major that excites you.

Do your research

Before answering the first part of this UW-Madison essay prompt, do some reading. For example, you can look into  extracurricular activities , research, or  travel opportunities  that only UW-Madison offers to its students. You might also review the  calendar  of student events. The  list of student organizations  on their website can be a great resource to find campus organizations you’d like to join.

If you want to get your finger on the pulse of student life, check out UW-Madison’s student publications. Additionally, leverage the alumni network to ask questions about previous students’ experiences. This can help you learn about student-specific traditions and events that you can’t read about on the website.

Start free-writing

If all of these options seem overwhelming, try starting with a structured free-write session. Take about 15-20 minutes and create two lists. Under one, list every reason why you want to attend UW-Madison. Under the second list, list every reason why you selected your major. If you’re unsure of your major, list every area of academic interest that you may want to pursue. Then, take an additional 15 minutes and draw connections between the two. Perhaps you listed that you want to participate in UW-Madison’s  DSE Mentorship Program  for undergraduate engineers. If you also engineering as a possible major, that’s a great connection to highlight in your essay.

The second part of this UW-Madison essay prompt is a great way to demonstrate your academic and intellectual goals. Take a look at their list of 9,192 courses and 288 undergraduate majors and certificates. Pick three courses that look interesting and explain why each of those courses appeals to you. How would you benefit from taking these courses? How do your previous academic experiences set you up for success?

Avoid statistics

You want to avoid listing out numbers and statistics that admissions officers already know. For instance, instead of spending words talking about how the average class size is 31, explain specifically which professors you would be excited to learn from in such a personal teaching environment. If you are interested in two contrasting majors, you should support both of them with anecdotes about your academic experiences.

This is the space to show off your expert investigation skills and name-drop courses, clubs, professors, and research opportunities only available at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Colleges can tell when you swap out their name for another University and submit the same “Why here?” answer. Your application will be stronger if your answer to this “why UW-Madison” essay could not be swapped with any other schools’ applications.

UW-Madison Essay Draft Key Questions:

• Do you prove that you’ve done research on the school?
• Do you explain what unique opportunities UW-Madison would provide you that you could not get anywhere else?
• Does your draft provide specific details about what you hope to do while on UW-Madison’s campus?

UW-Madison Essay Prompts – Question 2

If you apply using the Common Application, you will be asked to respond to one of the freshman Common Application essays. If you apply within the UW System Application, you will need to answer the following prompt:

This part is all about you. Tell us about something you’ve done—academically or personally—and what you’ve learned from it. Was it a success or a challenge? Did it represent a turning point in your life? How did this particular moment in your life influence you, and how will it continue to influence your education? (650 words maximum).

Who completes this prompt?

Not everyone applying to UW-Madison will complete this UW-Madison essay. If you are applying to UW-Madison through the Common App, you will  not need  to respond to this UW-Madison essay prompt. If you are applying through the UW Systems Admissions Application then this UW-Madison essay will be the substitute for your Common App personal essay. This means you will want to spend a fair amount of time drafting your response to this UW-Madison essay prompt, since UW-Madison will not read your Common App personal essay if you apply through their college-specific portal.

There are several different parts to this UW-Madison essay prompt. At first glance, it may seem quite general. “Something you’ve done” is a pretty broad topic. However, the follow-up questions might qualify your chosen topic a bit more. You’ll need to describe how you learned from the situation. Was it something you succeeded in or was it a challenge you overcame? Did you find it to be a turning point that pushed you into a new phase of your life? You should be sure to address the final part of this UW-Madison essay prompt—about the event’s influence—and discuss how it will influence your education moving forward.

Avoid cliches

For this UW-Madison essay prompt, you could expand on something that is already present in your application. However, make sure that your topic is proportional to the length of this UW-Madison supplemental essay. For example, if you decide to write about an extracurricular, you will want to select something that you have a large role in. You should then discuss an anecdote that really challenged you, and as a result, prompted you to grow. Topics such as scoring an A on a big exam or winning an important sports game can be a little clichéd. Try to think of a unique situation that you overcame and the skills that you gained from that experience.

One of the most important parts of this UW-Madison essay is how your topic will impact your education. Make sure you discuss how you will contribute to academic life at UW-Madison. However, don’t repeat anything you already said in your “Why UW-Madison” essay. Overall, you want to make sure this UW-Madison supplemental essay shows who you are as a person and how you have grown. Given the relatively low UW-Madison acceptance rate, you should present detailed, well-written answers to the UW-Madison essay prompts.

UW-Madison Essay Prompts: Final Thoughts

Completing the UW-Madison essay prompts can seem daunting in light of the UW-Madison acceptance rate and high UW-Madison rankings. However, you shouldn’t let that discourage you from applying. The UW-Madison supplemental essays are a great opportunity to introduce yourself to UW-Madison admissions officers. With the lower UW-Madison acceptance rate, these UW-Madison essay prompts can boost your application if you have a lower-than-average GPA or  SAT score .

Use this guide as a step-by-step aid when approaching the UW-Madison supplemental essays, and start earlier than you think you should. Don’t be afraid to ask for revisions from someone; it’s helpful to have another set of eyes checking your UW-Madison supplemental essays for grammatical errors, tone, and clarity. Good luck!

This 2021-2022 essay guide on UW-Madison was written by  Laura Frustaci , Harvard ‘21. For your best chance against the UW-Madison acceptance rate, and more CollegeAdvisor.com resources, click  here . Want help crafting your UW-Madison supplemental essays? Create your free  account  or  schedule a free consultation  by calling (844) 343-6272.

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• Before you begin: useful tips for writing your essay

Before you start writing, keep these principles in mind:

Less is more

That is, you have a lot you could say, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you should try to say everything.

Be selective. Organize your statement around a unifying theme rather than merely listing your accomplishments.

Give good examples and explanations

Try to avoid writing sentences that could be cut and pasted out of your statement and into someone else’s with little difficulty. One detail is worth a thousand cliches.

For example, “I have always wanted to study physics because I like science,” is a sentiment with which almost anyone applying to graduate physics programs might agree. Remember that you’re applying to an advanced research degree, so the admissions committee will want to see evidence not only that you like a particular discipline, but that you engaged with the questions of the particular subfield in it—that you’re interested in that subfield’s ideas and research. You’ll need to show how that you’ve taken concrete steps to pursue your interests (like, for example, engaging in undergraduate research) and in doing so, you’ll use the jargon of your field to indicate that you are knowledgeable about it and can talk like someone who will be joining it.

Instead of saying that you “like” something, you can give a describe an experience that inspired or confirmed your interest. Explain how and why it had an effect on you. These details show your enthusiasm and dedication far more effectively than just saying that you like something does.

You may also want to describe a challenge that you’ve encountered while pursuing your academic interests—maybe a lab experiment didn’t turn out correctly or perhaps you encountered an issue with the archive you were studying. Explain how you tried to mitigate an obstacle or (if appropriate) how you overcame it. Including information about a problem that you’ve confronted can demonstrate your persistence and indicate that you’re ready to meet the challenges of graduate study. (Be careful though, an essay full of challenges and complaints may persuade a committee of just the opposite.)

Help your reader

Remember, the reader isn’t inside your head and may not always be able to understand why you are including certain information in your statement or may not be able to easily understand the connections between different parts of your statement. Don’t be afraid to be explicit and to clearly state how a particular experience demonstrates your potential for advanced study or the soundness of your reasons for pursuing it.

Follow instructions carefully

Make sure that your essay is responding to the question(s). Each department you apply to may have different requirements and expectations for their admissions essays. For this reason, ensure that read the admissions directions thoroughly and consult your advisor if you have any questions.

Cover your bases

Make sure that you’ve called attention to your successes and relevant experience and that you’ve explained any discrepancies in your record.

Proofread your essay!

Spelling, typos, and grammatical errors may distract your reader. Because readers often have to make quick judgments about potentially hundreds of candidates, they may be quickly turned off by any errors they perceive and may assume that the writer isn’t fully prepared for graduate study if a statement seems sloppy.

For this reason, leave yourself time to proofread and enlist the help of others to make sure that your essay is clearly written and error-free. Read through our “Get more help with your statement” page for more information about soliciting advice from others.

Academic and Professional Writing

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Planning and Writing a Grant Proposal: The Basics

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How to Write the “Why Us” Essay

The dos and don'ts of this common supplemental prompt.

The “why us” or “why school” prompt is one of the most popular supplemental essay questions asked on college applications. Here are just a few examples of how this prompt has showed up on applications in the past:

Please describe why you are interested in attending Tulane University. (50-800 words)  

Please share with us why you consider Duke a good match for you.  Is there something in particular about Duke’s academic or other offerings that attract you? (200 words)

Based upon your exploration of Rice University, what elements of the Rice experience appeal to you? (150 words)

Tell us why you decided to apply to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition, please include why you are interested in studying the major(s) you have selected. If you selected undecided, please describe your areas of possible academic interest. (650 words) 

Which aspects of Tufts’ curriculum or undergraduate experience prompt your application? In short: “Why Tufts?” (200 words)

The “why us” essay is your opportunity to demonstrate that you are a great fit for a particular school, and the best “why us” essays are bolstered by specific school research! Here are some basic “dos” and “don’ts” to guide you as you embark on crafting your “why us” essays.

DON’T:

• Write about basic facts that you can find on the school’s landing page or brochure , like their student-teacher ratio or student body size. Because these facts are so widely available, they are bound to show up on thousands of other applications, which makes it more likely that your essay will fade into the background. Also, hinging your “why school” essay on something as obvious as student-teacher ratio may make it seem like you haven’t actually done that much thoughtful research on the school in question!
• Focus on “prestige” factors like reputation or ranking. Every year, admissions officers are flooded with applicants who seem to just be chasing admission to a prestigious university – any prestigious university. That kind of applicant is not nearly as impressive as an applicant who can demonstrate, through detailed research, why they are a good match for that school’s particular programs.
• Get caught up in vague or tangential details. Telling an admissions officer about the weather on the day of your visit or gushing that a college “just feels right” doesn’t make for a very convincing essay!
• Conduct detailed research – beyond the school’s landing page. This is your moment to live out your private investigator dreams! Spend serious time on the school’s online course catalog, looking for specific programs, activities, and opportunities that set this school apart. Do boots-on-the-ground research by taking a real or virtual tour, or even visit a class if you can swing it. And if you know a current student, get in touch with them to ask them about their experience!
• Write about your intellectual interests. It’s important to articulate who you are as a student and what your intellectual and academic goals are. You don’t have to know your future career, or even sometimes your major, but they’ll be looking for intellectual curiosity and vitality. Admissions officers have to know what makes you tick in order to understand why you’re a good fit!
• Demonstrate how a school’s values align with your own. Sometimes you’ll find a school’s values explicitly stated in documents like Northwestern WILL , which lays out Northwestern’s goals and vision moving forward. Other times, you can deduce a school’s values by following them on social media, reading class syllabi, or tooling around on their website.
• Read the prompt and follow it closely. While lots of essays fall under the “why school” bucket, they all have their particularities. For example, some universities ask you to address the specific “college” that interests you (like the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts at Michigan), while others may ask you to consider a specific aspect of their curriculum. Make sure you’re responding precisely to the prompt that’s given!

Need more help navigating your supplemental essays, your personal statement, or the college application process in general? Our admissions team is here to help.

Caroline Hertz

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Wisconsin judge refuses GOP request to pause absentee voting ruling sought by people with disabilities

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A judge refused Thursday to put on hold his  ruling  that allows disabled people in Wisconsin to be emailed absentee ballots at home in November’s presidential election in the closely watched battleground state.

Republicans asked the judge to not enforce his ruling while their appeal is pending. But Dane County Circuit Judge Everett Mitchell on Thursday rejected their arguments, saying putting his ruling on hold “would inflict significant harm on both the disability rights advocates and the public interest.”

It will now be up to the state appeals court to decide whether to pause the ruling that opens up a new way for an unknown number of disabled voters to cast their ballots in swing state Wisconsin before the Nov. 5 election.

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Mitchell granted a temporary injunction on June 25 that allows clerks to email ballots to voters who self-certify that they can’t read or mark a paper ballot without help. The voters can then cast their ballots electronically at home using devices that help them read and write independently. The voters are still required to then print and mail the ballots back to the clerks or return them in person.

Other absentee voters can request ballots electronically, but they are then sent in the mail and not electronically. Voters then physically mark the paper ballots before returning them in person or via the mail.

Previously, state law allowed ballots to be transmitted electronically only to voters in the military or those overseas.

All absentee ballots have to be received by clerks before the polls close on Nov. 5 in order to be counted.

Neither side involved in the lawsuit had an estimate as to how many disabled voters may use the electronic ballot to vote.

Nearly 100,000 Wisconsin adults suffer from vision difficulties, according to statistics compiled by state health officials. A little more than 307,000 adults have difficulty moving, including difficulty walking, climbing stairs, reaching, lifting or carrying things.

Disability Rights Wisconsin, the League of Women Voters and four disabled voters brought the lawsuit in April. The Republican-controlled state Legislature intervened and filed the appeal and request for a stay while that is pending.

The Legislature’s attorney, Misha Tseytlin, indicated during a court hearing Tuesday that he would ask the appeals court for a stay in the case. He did not return a message for comment Thursday.

The plaintiffs argued that many people with disabilities can’t cast paper ballots without assistance, compromising their right to cast a secret ballot.

Republicans argued on appeal that the judge wrongly disrupted the status quo too close to the election.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice, which represents the elections commission, also argued that the process was open to security risks and could cause confusion.

The elections commission has begun the “complex process” to comply with the court’s order, its attorney, Karla Keckhaver, said in court Tuesday. That includes issuing guidance to more than 1,800 local clerks who administer elections and training them on the software needed to send the ballots, she said.

Questions over who can cast absentee ballots and how have become a  political flashpoint  in Wisconsin, where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point.

Wisconsin Watch  is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our  newsletter  to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

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Scott Bauer / Associated Press Correspondent at Associated Press

Scott Bauer is the head of the AP bureau in Madison, covering state government and politics.

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This Is How Democrats Win in Wisconsin

Ben wikler, the chair of the democratic party of wisconsin, discusses whether kamala harris can appeal to voters in the swing state..

[MUSIC PLAYING]

From New York Times Opinion, this is “The Ezra Klein Show.”

What a month this week has been. I don’t think I have ever lived through a period in American politics that felt like as much changed as fast. On Sunday, we got the news that Joe Biden was dropping out. I was on a plane that night. I feverishly wrote the audio essay that I then recorded Monday that came out Tuesday. And by Tuesday, I felt like we were in a fully different world than when I was writing.

Over the last year that I’ve been working on some of these issues, the most common and dominant worry that Democrats had if something happened to Joe Biden or if Joe Biden decided or was convinced to step aside is that they had so little confidence in Kamala Harris. Sunday, I was still hearing from Democrats worried about Harris. There was reporting of Nancy Pelosi wanting an open primary or an open convention.

And now, watching the party not just converge around her, but feel a real thrill around her, really, really become passionate Harris stans — watching the whole party fall out of the coconut tree and live unburdened by what has been and only in the imagining of what could be, it’s fun to watch Democrats have fun. They have not had fun in a long time. And it’s also a good reminder that people don’t know how something is going to feel until it actually happens.

At the same time, when things shift this much, it is reasonable to ask, is anything being missed? Are things that people were legitimately worried about being suppressed? Kamala Harris is a liberal Black Democrat from San Francisco, California. For many in the party, that is not the profile they would imagine or prefer for Wisconsin, for Michigan, for Pennsylvania, for Arizona, for Georgia, for all these states.

Now, Harris, as I’ve argued in other shows, has other political identities. That list of attributes doesn’t actually reveal that she was a moderate, tough on crime Democrat in California. But I think it’s worth taking the concerns the party had about her not very long ago seriously, and one way to do that is to look at Wisconsin. Losing Wisconsin in 2016 was a trauma for Democrats.

It’s no accident that Harris’s first major campaign rally, first campaign rally at all, in fact, since Joe Biden stepped aside, was in Wisconsin, the same state where Republicans held their convention this year. Wisconsin is a must-win state for everybody this year. But when Harris stepped out on that stage in Wisconsin —

The next president of the United States, Kamala Harris!

— the feel of it was, I think, really different than the people who had been worrying about how she might play in Wisconsin would have expected.

(CHANTING) Kamala! Kamala! Kamala!

Thank you all. Thank you. Thank —

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, Wisconsin. [LAUGHS]

How do Democrats win Wisconsin? Well, since 2016, they’ve been figuring that out. The Democratic Party there, the state party, is run by Ben Wikler, a veteran of different organizing groups like MoveOn and absolutely one of the most effective state chairs in the country. And they’ve been on a fair winning streak since.

In 2020, Joe Biden won the state. In 2022. Governor Tony Evers was re-elected. There was a feeling Wisconsin might go red, and they really kept that from happening. It has gotten bluer since 2016.

But that is not to say Democrats have been on an unbroken winning streak. And in particular, the lost sits in the Democratic psyche is Ron Johnson versus Mandela Barnes in the senate campaign in 2022. 2022 was a good year for Democrats. Ron Johnson was one of their prime targets. They really don’t like that guy, and they thought he was really vulnerable.

Barnes is the lieutenant governor. He’d been elected statewide. He’s a young Black Democrat, a charismatic guy, and he lost. And he lost in a race run by Chris LaCivita, who is now running Donald Trump’s campaign.

So what can be learned from that race? What can be learned from both Democratic wins and losses in Wisconsin, and how is the Republican Party positioned there now, now that Donald Trump has chosen JD Vance for his vice president? The person you would of course want to talk about this with is that Democratic state party chair, Ben Wikler. And he was kind enough to join me today. As always, my email, [email protected].

Ben Wikler, welcome to the show.

Great to be with you, Ezra.

So Kamala Harris’s first campaign rally happened yesterday, Tuesday, the 23rd, in Wisconsin. You were there. You helped introduce her. What was the vibe like?

It was electric. Let me paint the scene for you. We had a previously scheduled Kamala Harris visit to Wisconsin on Tuesday on the books, so our team was preparing for that.

And then the world changed on Sunday. And then the world changed again with a kind of whoosh. It was like the country was making a decision. The Democratic Party coalesced. Our delegates started pledging en masse for Kamala Harris. We endorsed her with a unanimous vote of her state party’s governing body on Monday.

And meanwhile, the RSVPs were rolling in, and the whole team planning the logistics of the event had to scramble to find a bigger and bigger place. They found West Allis Central High School with a huge gymnasium, and more than 3,000 people got in to the event.

And when you walked in, the room would just explode. And when I walked out, people jumped to their feet not because of me, because of this feeling that they were there for history. They were there for a kind of end to a period in American politics that people want to move past and the beginning of something so much better.

And all the way through, through multiple speakers, through music breaks, there was this just sense of joy and hope and optimism that felt so unlike the sense of dread that people have had in the pit of their stomach since 2015. Really, it felt like something new. And I feel so lucky that I was in the room when all that happened. And it feels like what we’re about to see unfold across the country.

Man, I’m pumped hearing that.

I want to pick up on two things you said there, Ben. One is the whoosh, and the other is the joy. But let’s do the whoosh first.

I feel like my head is spinning. I’ve never felt political sentiment change faster than in the past couple of days. This candidate, who people were actually afraid of, I think it’s important to be honest about this, inside the Democratic party, they are thrilled about. And there’s something very organic about it.

Suddenly, the internet is full of Kamala’s rap memes and memes of her laugh and her dancing. There’s this deep set of intangibles that have connected around her that feels a lot to me like Obama in 2008. But instead of being this build, that was a multi-year build to what he was in ‘08, it all happened in 48 hours. How do you account for it?

I feel like, as a country, we’ve been holding our breath. And it’s like we can finally exhale, and then we can start singing with joy. It is a head-spinning moment. It really is a head-spinning moment.

And I say this as someone who believes deeply that Joe Biden was an extraordinarily effective — still is an extraordinarily effective president. And he made this really extraordinary decision borne out of, I think, a really deep patriotism and a sense of something bigger than himself. And so I was in my feelings when that announcement came through. My head spun the first time when I saw President Biden’s tweet.

Yeah, when I saw that tweet, I actually had to sit down.

I felt like everything went quiet around me. You could feel history happening right there.

I think that’s right. I was sitting down. Thank goodness. I was sitting down with my laptop perched next to me. If I’d have been standing, I think I would have dropped my computer and smashed it. So on that front, I was well prepared, only on that front in a sense.

There was this yawning moment of no one knows what’s going to happen now when that word went out. And then President Biden shortly thereafter endorsed Vice President Harris. And then the work that the vice president has been doing, I think, started to bear fruit in a very rapid way.

She has been building relationships across the country. She’s been working closely with Democratic and progressive leaders and activists, union leaders, elected officials all over the country. She’s been on this nationwide tour since the Dobbs decision, meeting with people involved on the front lines of the fight for reproductive freedom, people directly affected and providers and advocacy groups and organizers.

She was in my office at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin earlier this year and met the whole team, people filing through and meeting her individually. She’s been doing this work in a way that I think the country hadn’t quite realized, in a way that made her the totally clear choice as our nominee. And this is something that I think, in a funny way, is starting from the party and moving out. Because the people who’ve been closest to the campaign, the people who’ve been seeing her in her stops across America, those are the people who are actually delegates.

She’s gone through the process, that mini primary that people have talked about — have wanted, which is for people to actually see her in action on the campaign trail. But she’s not been the locus of the national conversation. The national conversation was about Biden and Trump, then briefly about JD Vance, which — a decision that will live in infamy by Donald Trump.

But for Kamala Harris, she has been doing this. She has very visibly been just a powerhouse spokesperson in these last few weeks. And it is so natural now for her to step into this role as the nominee. She tipped the balance and got the presumptive nomination on Monday night. So she’s now the presumptive nominee of the party, and the general election has begun.

The last couple of days, she has raised more than $100 million, breaking all fund-raising records. We’re hearing a lot about money beyond that, money from big donors going into super PACs, money going down ballot in Wisconsin, in the Democratic Party there, in the down ballot races there. What are you seeing in fund-raising since Harris got Joe Biden’s endorsement?

I can say that in the last 48 hours at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, we’ve had a flood. We’ve had more than $250,000 just float in. People have been logging on and clicking, I’ll say it, wisdems.org, our website.

People have been — who I’ve left messages for the last year have now been sending me texts back that they just contributed $500, $5,000, people making bigger contributions than they thought. And anecdotally, talking to state legislative candidates already, it is a new day for them too. There’s a general sense, I think, of, yes, we can actually do this.

We can not only win, but we can win up and down the ballot. The goal now is a Democratic trifecta that can actually pass Roe into law, the Women’s Health Protection Act, led by my senator, Tammy Baldwin, I’m proud to say. We can pass the PRO Act for union organizing.

We can expand Social Security and Medicare, not watch them get eviscerated by the Vance Trumpites. You can feel the future on your fingertips. And that is going to fuel energy in state legislative races. It’s going to fuel energy for people running for county offices across the country.

It gets volunteers jazzed. For weeks, it’s been — every time I would go to a canvas kickoff, someone is asking, what’s going to happen with the ticket? They’re watching the news. They’re listening to your podcast.

They’re wondering, what should happen next? What is going to happen next? Now there’s clarity. And from that clarity comes unity. And from that unity comes energy. And I think that that’s what everyone involved in Democratic politics is feeling at this moment.

So I am personally thrilled to see Democrats have some joy in this election. I think they — as you put it well, I don’t think they quite realized how much dread they were carrying. It’s this mass collective effervescence. It’s really fun to watch and to see.

And I’m going to be counter-vibes for a minute, which is not going to be the most popular place to be right now, and inhabit some of the concerns I was hearing a few weeks ago, even through the weekend that have now been pushed to the side. And one of the reasons I wanted you on today is that Wisconsin is a good place to focus on these concerns.

There’s a tendency, as Democrats have been very focused on this Midwestern blue wall in recent years, to just say, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. And it’s moderate-ish Midwestern states. Tight elections could go either way. Obviously, they’re different states. What is the political culture of Wisconsin that people should take into account when they’re thinking about it?

Yeah, people see Wisconsin as the state where it’s always a nail-biter, not every time, but over and over. The governor’s race here was 1.1 percentage point in 2018 during the blue wave, the presidential elections that come down to fractions of a point. And they think that means that everyone’s clustered in the middle of the political spectrum.

And the reality is, like swing voters themselves, people have conflicted, idiosyncratic, interesting views that are deeply rooted in the history of this place. And just to spell that out, Wisconsin was the state where the Republican Party was founded as a radical antislavery party in the 19th century. It became the birthplace of the progressive movement as a popular, farmer labor in Minnesota, movement against the big trusts and corporate power. Fighting Bob La Follette is this iconic figure whose bust is in the state capitol. He was this founder of the Progressive Party and this forefather of the progressive movement here.

Wisconsin was the first state to ratify the 19th Amendment so women could vote. It was the first state to have a statewide equal rights law for women. Wisconsinites wrote the Social Security Act. They created workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance here.

People fought and died in battles for labor rights. There’s this deep, rich, progressive streak, the founding of Earth Day, all these things that happened here that people learn about in school. It’s also the state where Joe McCarthy rose to power.

It’s also a state where the John Birch Society had a huge role in Republican politics, where the Bradley Foundation, which funds the Heritage Foundation and was involved in Stop the Steal-ey stuff and Project 2025-ey stuff — all that happened in Wisconsin. And we got this red wave in 2010 with Scott Walker, the Republicans in the state legislature, who we finally have the chance to kick off. It’s a state where there’s both the greatest traditions of expanding freedom and making the government work for regular folks, and also a state where there’s a far right streak that has scarred our politics, I think, for so long.

It’s led to some of the biggest racial disparities in the country. All of those stories have played out here. And in every election, it’s a choice of, which Wisconsin is going to show up? Which Wisconsin are we going to be?

So 2022, surprisingly good year for Democrats in the senate. They beat a bunch of MAGA Republicans, but not in Wisconsin, where Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes loses in a pretty tough race to Ron Johnson, who had become very MAGA over those years. Mandela Barnes is a liberal Black Democrat. Johnson’s race is run by Chris LaCivita, who is now running Donald Trump’s campaign. And I want to play you one of the ads from that race.

What happens when criminals are released because bail is set dangerously low?

Tragedy in Waukesha. An SUV plows through the city’s Christmas parade.

Six people were killed and dozens more injured. Brooks was freed from jail on $1,000 bail.

Mandela Barnes wants to end cash bail completely. He wrote the bill. Barnes still wants to end cash bail today. Mandela Barnes, not just a Democrat, a dangerous Democrat.

LaCivita’s attack line on Barnes was different, “dangerous.” These were very Willie Horton-like ads, very racially coded. They darkened his skin with the filters they were using in the ads.

Republicans have already started using “dangerously liberal,” which is quite similar as their line on Harris. So this was the kind of race that people were afraid of and that many of the Democratic Party wondered how Harris would fare in. So I think it’s good to focus in on it. Talk me through, from your perspective, the Barnes-Johnson race and its lessons for Democrats now.

First of all, that ad makes me want to punch through a wall hearing it again, just as I felt at that time. Just to be clear, Mandela Barnes’s position was that, rather than how much money you have, the question should be whether you’re a danger to the community if you’re held in pretrial detention, which actually is a pro community safety point of view. But putting that aside, I think that race actually illustrates the path to victory for Kamala Harris in the following way.

Mandela Barnes came out of that primary ahead against Ron Johnson. Ron Johnson had pretty high negatives, but about a third of Wisconsin did not yet have a view about Mandela Barnes. And then Chris LaCivita and super PACs, allied super PACs, which put in $29 million to smear Mandela Barnes, they came in, and they were outspending the pro-Mandela, anti-Johnson side in some media markets in some weeks by 4 to 1. People were seeing attack after attack after attack.

And of course, they’re going to use — we see this all the time in Wisconsin, Republican-ran ads using inflammatory, racist, often racially coded, sometimes not even fig leaf dogwhistle racism or bullhorn. Of course we’re going to see those ads. And just to pull the lens back here, Wisconsin, we’ve had nail-biters over and over. Four of the last six presidential elections have come down to less than 1 percentage point.

But the other two out of the last six were landslides for Barack Obama. We’ve elected Tammy Baldwin in huge margins in 2012 and in 2018. Wisconsin is the first state in the country to elect a Black woman to statewide executive office, Vel Phillips in 1978.

In all these races, we’ve seen hideous Republican attacks. The question is how we punch back. And in that moment, Mandela’s campaign, and I say this being close to the internal side of this whole thing, they knew that they could actually beat that hideous message. And it took three things.

One is responding to the attack head on and deflating it. The second was laying out who Mandela Barnes is and what he wants to do, what he’s for. And the third is being on offense. The campaign didn’t have the resources to do all that. This was a campaign that had just finished a primary.

Groups had not yet clicked into gear to provide outside support. And so there was this massive imbalance, and people were hearing surround sound with the most vicious attacks without hearing the combination of defense, self-definition and offense. And what we from a million other races, when you do all those things, it works.

And we know that from that race too, because by the final stretch in that race, the cavalry arrived. The whole progressive movement was in formation, fighting and supporting Mandela Barnes. And he started gaining. He went from a significant deficit in the polls, and seeing the internal polls, I can vouch for this, to being right on the cusp. He was gaining about a point a week. And he ran out of weeks. He wound up losing by 1 point.

When you say the cavalry came in, do you mean they came in with money, or there was a change in feeling towards him? Was this a resources gap that closed?

Fundamentally, this was resources. When you have to choose, you only have enough money to have one ad on the air in every part of the state. You have to choose which of those messages you want to communicate or try to cram three messages into 30 seconds, which is really hard to do.

There were a whole bunch of groups on the air. By the end, there were groups going after Ron Johnson for his support for Jan. 6 protesters who beat up law enforcement officers and with U.S. veterans talking about how Ron Johnson attacked everything that they fought for. There were ads about Mandela Barnes and his story. And they were his ads making clear that he’s always supported community safety. He’s supported funding first responders, that the ads that Republicans were running were total BS.

But critically, if all you’re doing is defending, you’re going to lose. You have to be on offense at the same time. And to do that, you need to have the resources.

We do not have to be terrified of a red wave in 2024. That was the narrative in 2022, and Democrats went on defense. And I get that. I want to ask everyone to bring their minds to the fact that when we are on offense, when we are proud and fighting for who we are, what we want, for a country that works for everyone, we win these elections, and we’re going to win this year.

I think it’s important to talk about this bluntly, because I will say, this was a big whisper campaign against Harris over many months, which is this idea that I’d say a liberal Black Democrat from California, a woman, is not going to be able to win in Wisconsin, in Pennsylvania, in Michigan. You need someone from there. You need somebody like Scranton Joe, although it doesn’t just have to be Scranton Joe.

And at the same time, if you look at Wisconsin’s record, Barack Obama wins in Wisconsin twice. Wisconsin has a very progressive record. And the Mandela Barnes / Johnson race — I don’t think I had realized in retrospect even how close it was. It was a 27,000-vote win for Johnson. It was nothing.

And both Clinton — Hillary Clinton and Trump and Joe Biden and Trump, these were 20,000-vote margins. So these were all — it’s all been teetering. But what do you say to Democrats who have this view that these Midwest states will not vote for someone with Harris’s both geographic and racial and ideological background?

As Wisconsinites would say, that cheese curd don’t squeak. It’s just not the case. And you can see that in our electoral record.

I would also say, in 2022, the national incumbent advantage was 2.2 points. So Mandela Barnes was running against an incumbent U.S. senator, and he lost by 1 point. If he had been the incumbent, he probably would have won that election. No incumbent from either party lost a senate race in 2022.

So this was within the margin of what a fully-funded, resourced and supported campaign can do. And I will never not be mad that we didn’t find a way to find all the resources needed to be able to cross the finish line. But that election illustrates exactly why this is a winnable race in this moment.

First thing I’ll say is, unlike Donald Trump and Tammy Baldwin, Kamala Harris lived in Wisconsin when she was four. She was a kid who grew up in part in the Midwest. She visited her house in Madison, her childhood home when she was in Madison, on her recent campaign visit.

She understands the state. She’s been here every year during her vice presidency in not just Milwaukee, but in Western Wisconsin and in Waukesha County, the heart of Republican Wisconsin. That’s when she kicked off her “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour. She is 100 percent credible as someone who will restore women’s freedom over their own bodies, No one can ever hear her speak or even see her and think this is not someone who would actually carry that forward.

So campaigns are about narrative, about momentum. They’re about deep, visceral sense of who’s team is this person on. And Kamala Harris is evidently, clearly on the team of people who want a country that’s characterized by freedom and opportunity and hope and the future. Donald Trump is manifestly the opposite. And that’s a contrast that works out for Team Future. People do not want to go back to the sense of constant conflict and dread and fear and menace that Trump represents.

I want to note before I play this that I think Republicans are scrambling and confused right now. So I’m not sure where they are at this moment as where they’re going to land in their attacks. But I want to play you one of the early ads Republicans have released on Harris.

Kamala was in on it. She covered up Joe’s obvious mental decline.

Our president is in good shape, in good health, tireless, vibrant. And I have no doubt about the strength of the work that we have done.

But Kamala knew Joe couldn’t do the job, so she did it. Look what she got done — a border invasion, runaway inflation, the American dream dead. They created this mess. They know Kamala owns this failed record.

The way some of the early ads I’ve seen from them are working is on two things. One is saying she was a border czar. And you know, the Trump campaign is very built around this idea of a migrant invasion.

And the other is tying her to Biden’s record. And Democrats are very proud of Biden’s record. I think there’s a lot for Democrats to be proud of in Biden’s record, but Biden’s record has not been popular. People are mad about inflation. How do you think about that? How do you respond to that?

That feels like an ad crafted for a Fox News audience that’s been following the narratives in the MAGA cinematic universe. And this is the next plot twist. I don’t think that moves normie voters. I think for people that don’t live, sleep, eat and breathe this stuff, it’s very clear that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are two separate people. It’s also a moment that is fundamentally different in terms of what is moving people day to day.

We have seen a drop in border crossings. We’ve seen an enormous rapid drop in inflation. People are still frustrated about higher prices. But Trump is running on an increased prices platform. And that may have been a tough message for people to hear from Joe Biden. I think that Kamala Harris can make it really powerfully.

And if people are frustrated with the way things have been going, and they want change, Kamala Harris is a change candidate. And this, I think, speaks to this kind of deeper underlying structure of politics recently. There have been a series of change elections, a series of elections where people were frustrated. 2008 was a change election, and voters voted for Barack Obama once and then a second time. This was like, let’s finish the job. We can’t go back in 2012.

2016, there were a lot of reasons that 2016 happened, but for some voters, it was a kind of burn the house down. Sick of this. Let’s change everything kind of vote for Donald Trump.

2020, those same voters, the ones who bounced back, so many of them were like, ah, you know, we voted for Trump and look what we got. This is terrible. They want change again.

One thing I’ve heard from a lot of political strategists is that Harris’s vice-presidential pick is going to be meaningful. It is the first huge decision voters will see her make, and it will help define her to them. What would you advise her to look for in terms of a candidate who would actually help in a place like Wisconsin?

My core advice would be to make the decision on the grounds of a governing partner that you can work with to build a better future for the country. I think the more political — in a sense, a stunt pick — would actually not send the clear message that this is someone who’s planning for how to make everyone’s lives better. That said, I don’t think any of the names that are being thrown around are stunt picks. These are all people who are credible partners in governance.

I think fundamentally what people are going to be responding to in this race is a choice between two different futures and every brushstroke that helps to paint that future can help make that choice vivid. JD Vance actually reinforces that aspect of the menace that Trump poses to people and that MAGA poses to people. I think for Kamala Harris, her partner is an opportunity to help paint a vision of change and moving forward in a way that I think will be really exciting to folks.

I’m glad you brought up Vance. I don’t normally think vice-presidential picks are very significant. It happens occasionally. Sarah Palin was one, but Vance feels significant. I mean, one dimension is the amount of blood Democrats smell in the water around JD Vance is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Just watching every vice-presidential possibility line up on “Morning Joe” and cable news to show how they would take Vance apart in a debate. And I want to play you what Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the line he was trying out here.

Well, it’s true. These guys are just weird. And, you know, they’re running for he-man women hater’s club or something. That’s what they go out. That’s not what people are interested in. And there is angst because robber barons like JD Vance and Donald Trump gutted the Midwest, told us we didn’t do that.

They talk about private schools. Where in the heck are you going to find a private school in a town of 400? Those are public schools. Those are great teachers that are out there making a difference and gave us an opportunity to succeed. That angst that JD Vance talks about in “Hillbilly Elegy,” none of my hillbilly cousins went to Yale, and none of them went on to be venture capitalists or whatever. It’s not who people really are.

The reason that connected, I mean, I’ve seen that all over, is it gets at something true, which is that there’s something weird about Vance. I mean, I’m sorry. There is. Like, watching the guy’s own ideological evolution, I’m very willing to take people’s conversions as sincere. But going from Trump might be Hitler to as slavish as Vance is towards him now. The way Vance just talks about other people, kind of the way he is on the stump, like it just like feels like a guy who has spent too much time in a MAGA comment section, like late at night on YouTube for the last four years.

And it feels like it has crystallized something about Trump. Like, it has created a different kind of attack surface around him that he’d almost become this sort of — I don’t know — he was treated with nostalgia. Like, people got used to him, and Vance made him and them weird again.

I think a lot of people are about to find out what Groyper means.

Do you want to say what groyper means? They’ve got to find out somehow, Ben.

I think people should Google Groyper. G-R-O-Y-P-E-R. Bordering on alt right online provocateur universe. And there’s a very, very extreme edge of this that includes all the most terrifying Charlottesville-y type of people. But this is the part of Trump that is the most repellent to voters, but who’s been on display ever since he lost the election in 2020 most of all. This is the Stephen Miller wing of Trumpism, but it’s the same Trump who had a meal with Nick Fuentes, the White nationalist, far right political commentator who’s kind of the king of the groypers.

Often, you’ll see Trump post these things on Truth Social that come from the far, far right ultra mega extremist fever swamps. And some of the things that Vance talks about and the ideas that he puts forward, they come from that same fringe. I remember when I was working at MoveOn during the Trump presidency, there was one big kind of showdown around immigration. And there was this rumor, this possibility that Trump was going to support the DREAM Act.

And then at the last second, he completely ripped away from that and endorsed, you know, the worst, most far right positions, the stuff that we saw with the family separation policy. And over and over, what we would find is that Trump would dip into the well of the alt right, ultra extremist fringe conservative movement. And that feels like the swamp from which JD Vance emerged.

That version of Trump can never win a majority in this country. Cannot win a majority in Wisconsin. The Trump and the JD Vance that comes and talks about trade and talks about factories closing, that has a certain populist resonance. But this kind of seething hatred and fury, that does not appeal to people.

I have a theory on this, and I’m happy to share it, but I’m curious for your theory on why he chose Vance. Trump, I think, in a lot of ways has pretty sensitive political instincts when it counts. He’s been running away from Project 2025. He came out with a more moderate states choice position on abortion and has really pushed that in the Republican Party platform, recognizing what a vulnerability that is for him. He picked Mike Pence in 2016.

And he had these other candidates he was thinking of. I mean, the moment Doug Burgum was on his short list, my first thought was, oh, shit. Like, that’s the kind of move from Trump that would actually be quite dangerous, right? I would have never in a million years thought Doug Burgum, the completely normal Republican governor of North Dakota, would end up on his short list.

Rubio is also a pretty interesting figure from that perspective. Rubio is a very talented politician. He’s moved more MAGA-y over time, but he’s able to really do it with a smile. He knows how to run in a very big, diverse state.

And Vance is inexperienced. He’s not great on TV. He comes across as pretty mean. What’s your theory of how he ended up on the ticket?

It feels like the Trump who thought he could not lose. You know, maybe it’s the part of Trump that thinks that he can’t lose unless there’s cheating, and he wants the person who’s willing to use their muscle to overturn election results he doesn’t like. But fundamentally, it felt like an act of supreme overconfidence, of choosing the person who he just really actually liked their vibe, as opposed to the person who he thought voters would really like.

It feels to me like he was on a boat, and he thought that he was so certain to win the race that he picked up his anchor and started spinning it in a circle, and then hurled it through the floor of the boat. It’s like an act that you only do when you think that there’s no way that you can possibly lose. And yet, here he is in a totally different race. There’s rumored — or there’s reported angst within the Republican world already that he picked the wrong guy. I think that’s just going to get worse.

And I think that’s going to get worse as more comes out about JD Vance and what he’s written and what he says and whose ideas he’s most interested in. He does not represent somebody you’d want a heartbeat away from the presidency. He represents menace. And the decision to go with that might be one of the biggest political mistakes we’ve ever seen from Donald Trump.

I think that political parties, political coalitions, they have virtues and vices that are associated with them, that are sort of their light side and the dark side. I think for Democrats, all of this is perfectly true under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I think their sort of light side is they’re thoughtful. They’re curious. They’re open-minded. They think through things really hard. They take serious things very seriously.

And the dark side is smugness, is condescension, is a kind of faculty club elitism. It came out in Hillary Clinton’s deplorables comment. I think one of the things that Democrats have had to really work on inside their coalition and their presentation in this period is not seeming smug. Not treating the people voting for Donald Trump like the sort of dying spasm of white rage, which was a real tendency in the party.

On the Republican side, I think they’ve got some virtues — patriotism, and sort of a love of country and a love of tradition. And the vice is a sort of rage and contempt. Everyone is against us. The people who are against us are un-American.

And those aesthetics really matter. And to me, the difficulty that Vance and also oftentimes Trump, which I think is actually coming out in him more and more as he feels a little bit cornered by Harris now, is that rage and that contempt. And I want to play this clip from Vance because I remember being stunned by it at the time. And I think it really shows this sort of politics.

We’re effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made. And so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. And it’s just a basic fact. You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?

Kamala Harris, I should say, has two stepchildren who they call her Mamala. It’s a very important part of her life and identity. Pete Buttigieg was in the process of adopting while JD Vance was saying that. But even putting all that aside, like, how does that vibe play, in your view, in Wisconsin?

To hell with that guy. You know, wherever you go in Wisconsin — and Wisconsin is small towns. It is factory towns or water tower towns as they’re called. It has bigger cities, no huge cities. Milwaukee is well under a million people. It has a ton of rural areas.

But wherever you go in our state, there’s all kinds of families. That is part of the American story now. There are families with stepkids. There are single people. There are people who’ve divorced and remarried and blended their families together. There’s all kinds of different family structures. And everyone knows people who have different ways that their lives are proceeding. That is just a universal experience in Wisconsin, in Michigan, in Pennsylvania. It’s the human condition now that not everyone follows the same script.

And part of living in our society is honoring everyone making their own decisions about their own personal lives. Like, that is the essence of freedom, right, is the idea that each of us should be able to make the most important decisions in our lives for ourselves. And I think that Vance clip kind of illustrates the core of this.

Abortion is a big deal. It is a part of that freedom of making your own decisions about your own body. Vance wants to control people. He wants to shame people for being different. And he wants to create a system of control so that people follow the script that he wants them to live. That doesn’t actually sell.

So many inconsistent voters and swing voters, what they really don’t want is politicians getting so interested in their lives that they want to make their big decisions for them. That is voter repellent, more powerful than bug repellent is to bugs. And it is not something that wins you an election.

And we are going to make sure that voters know that if they want to be controlled and dominated by people like Donald Trump and JD Vance, they should vote for Trump and Vance. If they want the freedom to live their own lives, then they should vote for Kamala Harris. That is a crystal clear message that results, I think, in a victory that will end the MAGA era in American politics.

I want to read something you said to me for an article I wrote back in February about the Democratic Party. You said, quote, “When you talk to inconsistent voters and swing voters, you see a very high level of cynicism the government can ever deliver. To be persuasive to them, you need to credibly describe what kind of change you can generate and on what kind of things. And it tends to be on things that people know the government already does. That’s how you wind up with Whitmer and Evers running on fixing the damn roads in 2018. Then, they did fix the damn roads, and then they got re-elected.” Tell me about that theory of winning over swing voters.

So it starts — there’s a book, which I preview, we’ll recommend later, by a political scientist named Samuel Popkin. And it’s called “The Reasoning Voter.” And his argument is essentially a lot of people in politics and political science and pollsters talk about low information voters, but he argues for low information rationality, which is to say people who don’t want to think about politics much, the way that I don’t think about Olympic sports when it’s not the every four-year Olympics very much, those voters, they often do vote. They don’t have a ton of information, but they connect the dots based on the information that they do have.

They have ideas in their mind about what the government does and what it doesn’t do. And they don’t get mad at politicians for things that they don’t think are affected by those politicians, but things that they do identify as the work of government, as the domain of public policy, they do look at what they see and then hold politicians accountable for it. So governors and roads is a great example.

And it was the case for a while that people felt like abortion probably was not going to be determined by presidents. It just didn’t seem real. But then Dobbs happened. And for 451 days in Wisconsin after the Dobbs decision came down, every abortion provider in Wisconsin stopped providing abortion care because of a 19th century law.

Voters experienced in their own lives and the lives of people that they knew crises, usually happening in private, where people got pregnant. They needed emergency care. In some cases, they had ectopic pregnancies. There were doctors who were terrified of providing that care because they thought they might be sent to jail. Those stories spread.

Going back to the quote that you just read me, the question of whether women or politicians make decisions about abortion, whether it’s the person who gets pregnant, or the politician who passes a law, that is clearly in the domain of politics now. One of the arguments that is in this book and in political science broadly is that people make inferential shortcuts from the things that they can see, the information that they have close to hand, and what people’s positions are likely to be.

The more a campaign puts a highly charged issue front and center the more voters distinguish between the different candidates and what their positions are. But now, we have a very handy, easy shortcut on who is going to defend your reproductive freedom and who isn’t. Trump has been trying to take abortion off the table. Chris LaCivita did that with Ron Johnson as well. They tried to dodge the issue completely, but it’s clearly there. JD Vance makes clear it’s there. Project 2025 makes clear it’s there. And Kamala Harris makes clear that it’s there. And this is the most potent issue in American politics right now. Not the first issue people name, but the issue that moves swing voters and even some Republicans to vote for Democrats and the issue that gets people off the couch and into the ballot box. And it is now unignorable in 2024.

I’m glad you went there with it, because the question I was going to ask you is, what is the equivalent of roads for federal politicians? So abortion is one. I actually think that’s a very sharp point that it has moved out of this realm of things you don’t really think the president is going to do anything about either way to things that you do. Are there other things like that for you?

Roads and Roe are two pretty big ones, so I’m glad that we’re noting those. There’s another kind of broader one, which is, are you on the side of the people or special interests? And Kamala Harris, as a prosecutor, she went after the big banks. She got $18 billion for consumers in California.

She embodies this sense of protecting and standing up to bullies and to predatory wrongdoers like Donald Trump. Her life of public service as a prosecutor, as attorney general, as a Senator, I worked with her very closely in the fight against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act when she was in the U.S. Senate, and I was at MoveOn in my previous job. And she’s very credible as a messenger of someone who will take on special interests and corporate criminals on behalf of the people.

And Trump is pretty obviously a guy who loves being friends with billionaires. He had that meeting with oil company executives and told them that he’d give them whatever they wanted if they funneled $1 billion to his campaign. And so there’s a set of things that all touch on the same kind of emotional core of whether you’re for the wealthy or whether you’re for the people. Whether you’re for big, powerful special interests who are gouging regular folks, or whether you’re someone who will stand up for regular folks. And Kamala is a very strong messenger on that.

There’s also another thing that is more complicated in terms of how it plays out, which is this idea of democracy. And the weird thing about it is that for people that are highly motivated, high information voters, democracy is often the most important thing, the sacred idea that the people should decide rather than politicians overturning election results that they don’t like.

The reason why it’s a little complicated is that if you’re a cynical voter, you might already think the system is rigged. You might already think that your vote isn’t powerful. The idea that you’re going to vote for someone because they’ll save democracy if you think democracy is already broken is not super credible. And yet, it is a really potent and really important and really powerful issue because it motivates people that do the work and become messengers. It’s the people who think that it’s worthwhile to go out and knock on doors. Those people believing to their core that democracy is under threat, which it manifestly is from Donald Trump, that is a powerful motivator.

And for a slice of high information Republican voters, it’s actually a deal breaker for Trump. There’s a slice of people who voted for Trump twice who are going to vote for Kamala Harris this fall because of Jan. 6th and because of Trump’s continued insistence that the last election was stolen and the next one will be stolen. He won’t accept election results. There’s a meaningful number of those voters.

And Wisconsin went for Trump by 22,748 votes in 2016. It went for Biden by 20,682. This is a small margin state. Those voters, the voters who believed to their core about democracy, even if they disagree with Democrats about a lot of other things, those voters can tip the election as well.

You said that Wisconsin is a small margin state, and it has been in recent presidential elections. But Tammy Baldwin, Senator Baldwin is on the ballot this year. She is leading her Republican opponent in the latest Marquette poll by five points. In 2018, she won by 11 points.

Wisconsin is unusual in this. It is still a state that is sending a Republican and a Democrat to the Senate. But unlike Johnson, I mean, Baldwin has been winning by pretty big numbers. I don’t think she’s seen in general as an easily beatable figure. So what is behind her success? What lessons are there in it?

Tammy Baldwin is a dynamite Senator. She’s a dynamite campaigner. I feel very lucky. I got to know her when I was in high school, and she was a state representative. And I volunteered on her first Congressional campaign when I was a senior in high school.

In the primary, she won thanks in part to the strength of a huge turnout at the University of Wisconsin campus. The newspaper headline the next day was “Youthquake.” And she went to Congress. She did a great job there.

When she ran for Senate, a lot of people were having this conversation — can Tammy Baldwin become the first out lesbian woman elected to the United States Senate? Could she win a state like Wisconsin? She was up against Tommy Thompson, who was the legendary four-times elected Republican governor of the state, who then went to Washington, D.C. to work for George W. Bush.

And she housed him. She won in a big victory in 2012 and then was number one target by the Republicans going into 2018. And then, she won in an 11-point landslide.

There are some key lessons to be drawn there. First of all, she does communicate all over the state, and she travels all over the state. And she connects with voters in rural areas, in small towns, in suburbs, in cities. She listens to people. They can tell that she likes them. She has this record. And if you listen to her stump speech, there’s a lot about how she stands up to the big drug companies. She stood up to the insurance companies. She wrote the law that allows people to get on their parents’ health insurance until age 26.

Her current opponent is a guy named Eric Hovde. Eric Hovde is a mega, mega millionaire, hundreds of millions of dollars who runs a bank in California. He grew up in Wisconsin and then left, came back to run for Senate, and lost to Tommy Thompson in the primary in 2012, and then left again. And then, has come back to run for Senate again.

And he said all these different things that convey that he doesn’t actually like Wisconsinites. He has a little bit of that JD Vance problem of contempt for a lot of people. And Tammy Baldwin is able to show people that she’s on their side and that she’s effective. And she’s showing that her opponent is not on the side of regular folks.

I think there’s a lot to learn from that. And there’s a lot to learn from the way that she drives a crystal clear message that is rooted in her story and that connects with the lives of voters all over Wisconsin. And in some ways, the most powerful thing in politics is the messenger. Having a messenger who instantly makes clear that you’re for real, that you can deliver on what you’re saying, that this is what the election is about.

I want to pick up on that issue of enthusiasm going back to the early Tammy Baldwin races. As long as I’ve been in politics, there’s been this idea that Democrats benefit from high turnout, high enthusiasm elections, and Republicans benefit from lower turnout. And that reflected compositional differences in the parties, that Democrats were stronger among young people, stronger among Black and Hispanic voters, stronger among voters who don’t turn out that often.

But the belief was that if this was a high turnout election in 2024, given the surprising strength that Trump seemed to be showing among more marginal voters, younger voters, Black voters, that that would be good for him. Now, all of a sudden, there’s this huge, what at least feels like — I mean, we don’t know the polling really yet — but a huge shift in sentiment around Harris, and particularly around these very same voters.

And so I guess I’m curious from your perspective, if you feel the race has changed around this question of turnout and enthusiasm, if this is just all across the board a really high energy, high turnout clash. Has that shifted in the Democrats’ favor? Is that something Democrats should now want?

There’s a lot of theories around this. There’s a lot of different ways you can slice the data. Mike Podhorzer runs a Substack called Weekend Reading, where he maps out in 2016, a lot of people voted. 2020, a lot more people voted. Biden won the people who had voted in 2016 by two points. He won the people who had not voted in 2016, but did in 2020 by 12 points.

This is new voters who turned out to defeat MAGA. And a lot of those voters voted in 2018. And in the battleground states specifically, not so much in California and New York, those voters turned out in 2022 and helped to reelect Governor Evers and Whitmer and Shapiro and dealt this huge blow to MAGA politicians who’d wanted to create the conditions for success in the 2024 coup that they had failed to execute in 2020.

And that anti-MAGA coalition I think now has a very clear reason to show up. A lot of what we saw in the polls was a striking absence, especially of young voters. And this is, you know, as a lot of people have discussed, this is also true of Black and Latino voters, which I want to emphasize a lot of Black and Latino voters are young voters. So all these things layer on top of each other.

And a lot of those folks just were not opting in to voting. The level of voter interest and enthusiasm had waned. The people who were left, the people who said that they might vote, a lot of those were more MAGA folks who were ready potentially to vote for Trump.

Going back to something you were saying earlier, if you look at the polling just recently in Wisconsin, there was a public poll by YouGov that found that Tammy Baldwin had 50 percent support. Eric Hovde, her Republican opponent, had 43 percent support. Trump had 43 percent support. Biden in that poll was at 38 percent.

So it’s not that Tammy was defeating her Republican opponent because her Republican opponent was less popular than Trump. Trump and Eric Hovde had exactly the same level of support in Wisconsin. It’s that there were a whole bunch of people who were not sure if they would vote in the presidential election. And they were sure that they would support Tammy, if they did vote. And I think that changes now.

So much of what was happening was people who felt frustrated that they were seeing a rematch of a choice that they’d had to make before. They’re fed up with things. They want to change, and they didn’t feel like they had a way to express that through their votes. And now, they do. That, I think is part of the shift for a lot of those voters.

I also want to say for Democrats, we’ve had weeks where Democrats, every time they gathered, they were talking about what should happen, what was going to happen at the top of the ticket. And now, they can direct their attention to making the case for our nominee and against the Republican nominee. And that kind of clarity, it’s kind of liberating. It allows people to focus on doing the things that will actually affect the election result. It’s the best cure for political anxiety is taking action.

So there’s a ton of that kind of energy that is bursting forth as well. People who felt like the family was having a fight, instead of the family standing shoulder to shoulder and going out there in the world to win.

One thing that feels constant around me is people who say to me, you know, I know my vote doesn’t matter, right? Like, where they are, the Democrat is going to win. But I know people who live in red states who care a lot about this election. And to them, where they are, their vote isn’t going to matter because Donald Trump is going to win.

What is going to matter — and it almost seems like this amazing privilege — is living in Wisconsin, in Michigan, in Pennsylvania and Arizona, maybe in Georgia, maybe in North Carolina. Whatever side of this you’re on, if you are in a state where the person you support is going to win it overwhelmingly and you want to be useful, you want to be involved in the places where the election matters, where the election might tip, as it has in Wisconsin, 20,000-ish votes, what is useful? As somebody who I’m sure gets a lot of this question incoming, like what is valuable for you beyond just money from people who don’t live in your state?

I have a list of five things that people who live outside of a battleground state should do. They are, one, donate. Two, recruit other people to donate. Three, volunteer. Four, recruit other people to volunteer. And five, move to a swing state.

And I say this in all seriousness, especially the first four. Money does matter. And you can see that in some of the races that we’ve talked about here. There’s a certain point at which it stops mattering. But my general philosophy is we should use better messages to out-communicate the other side in every time period and every medium all the way through.

And posting wasn’t on your list. Just being on X or Threads or TikTok all the time. That wasn’t one of the five?

I will say that it actually doesn’t hurt to post. It used to be that there was a kind of stigma that Republican voters talked about for announcing that you supported Trump. More recently, it’s felt a little weird for some people to say loud and proud that they supported Joe Biden. And for Trump world, there’s just this level of enthusiasm where people have started to overestimate Republican support. So I think that does help.

But one thing I will strongly say is that if you amplify the other side’s messages when you’re trying to respond to them, that is counterproductive. There’s now a lot of research about how lies spread. And if you repeat the lie before you debunk it, people remember the lie more strongly.

But I do think that posting is helpful. It’s not the case that arguing with Republicans on X is going to win this election, but reaching out to people who are not thinking about politics much, who you know if your life, who are in your timeline, that can help. And that adds up. I mean, this might be a blowout election. I want it to be a blowout election. It might be another razor thin election. And just in case it is, don’t act like this is a spectator sport for the next 102, 103 days. Put yourself in the game and get involved so that the day after the election you wake up either feeling like you are a part of the victory or knowing that you did everything you possibly could.

Ben, always our final question — what are three books you would recommend to the audience?

So the first book is one that I mentioned that I cannot recommend strongly enough, “The Reasoning Voter.” And I think what’s so helpful about it is that it is so cheap and easy and cynical to think that nothing matters, to think that voters go off vibes in a way that is meaningless. In fact, people do think about this stuff, but a lot of them don’t pay attention much to politics.

And “The Reasoning Voter” goes through a huge amount of evidence and data and a theoretical way to think about people who don’t think about politics much, which no listener to this podcast are members of that club. No one who reads “The Reasoning Voter” is a member of that club, but it helps to put your mind into the place of someone who is picking up little bits here and there and then earnestly trying to figure out who’s on their side and who will make their lives better. So “The Reasoning Voter” by Samuel Popkin.

The second book that I recommend is a Wisconsin book that when I read it, it made me want to pump my fist in the air. It’s a book called “Finding Freedom: The Untold Story of Joshua Glover, Freedom Seeker.” It’s by Ruby West Jackson and Walter McDonald. Ruby West Jackson is an amazing Wisconsin original woman, an African-American woman from Beloit who became a kind of historian of slavery and of the Underground Railroad and of African-American history in Wisconsin.

And it tells a story of a man who escaped slavery in Missouri, came to Wisconsin on the Underground Railroad, and then was tracked down. They put him in detention in Milwaukee. And then an uprising, a kind of a riot broke out, broke him out of jail, helped him get on a boat and escape to Canada. The people involved in that protest were tried and their case went to the state supreme court in Wisconsin, which unanimously decided before any other court had ever reached this conclusion that the Fugitive Slave Act was unconstitutional. It helped lead to the Civil War and the secession of the Southern states.

And it’s a story about people organizing, fighting for justice. It has these speeches by Black abolitionists in Racine that will make you just jump out of your seat and want to run through a wall in the fight for a better world. And it is rooted in the state that I love. So that’s my second book.

The third book is a book that led to a movie that is a key part of my life. I grew up watching “The Princess Bride” over and over. I memorized the movie. I quoted it in my toast at my sister’s wedding, the part about maw-widge.

The high point of my time as a Democratic state party chair in terms of fun was original cast reading of “The Princess Bride” script as a fundraiser during the pandemic. I now watch “The Princess Bride” regularly with my kids, but it wasn’t until I was an adult that I read the book.

“The Princess Bride” is by William Goldman. It is hilarious. It’s a kind of a book that pretends to be an abridged version of a different book. It started with William Goldman telling stories to his own daughters when they were kids. And in a moment when there’s so many things that make your head spin, it is, I think, an important part of finding joy to go back to that theme in this conversation, to read things that just make you laugh and make you glad that we live in the world that we live in.

We’re so lucky to be alive in this moment when we have the power to change the future, where we have the power to vote for our highest aspirations. And it’s a world that has freedom. It’s a world where we can laugh.

Ben Wikler, thank you very much.

Thanks so much for having me on, Ezra. [MUSIC PLAYING]

This episode of the show is produced by Rollin Hu. Fact checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Isaac Jones. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Elias Isquith, Kristin Lin and Aman Sahota. We have original music by Isaac Jones, audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser, and special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

Produced by ‘The Ezra Klein Show’

The Democratic Party’s rallying around Kamala Harris — the speed of it, the intensity, the joyfulness, the memes — has been head-spinning. Just a few weeks ago, she was widely seen in the party as a weak candidate and a risk to put on the top of the ticket. And while a lot of those concerns have dissipated, there’s one that still haunts a lot of Democrats: Can Harris win in Wisconsin?

[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on the NYT Audio App , Apple , Spotify , Amazon Music , YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts .]

Democrats are still traumatized by Hillary Clinton’s loss in Wisconsin in 2016. It is a must-win state for both parties this year. And while Democrats have been on a fair winning streak in the state, they lost a Senate race there in 2022 — a race with some striking parallels to this election — which has made some Democrats uneasy.

But Ben Wikler is unfazed. He’s chaired the Wisconsin Democratic Party since 2019 and knows what it takes for Democrats to win — and lose — in his state. In this conversation, he tells me what he learned from that loss two years ago, why he thinks Harris’s political profile will appeal to Wisconsin’s swing voters and how Trump’s selection of JD Vance as his running mate has changed the dynamics of the race in his state.

You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on the NYT Audio App , Apple , Spotify , Google or wherever you get your podcasts . View a list of book recommendations from our guests here .

(A full transcript of this episode is available here .)

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Isaac Jones. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin, Elias Isquith, Kristin Lin and Aman Sahota. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

An earlier version of this podcast episode and the transcript that accompanies it attributed an incorrect distinction to Kamala Harris’s July 23 rally in Wisconsin. It was not the biggest Democratic political event in the state since 2012.

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Do you guys have tips for writing the why Essay?

Hey guys, I’m applying to uw soon, and I was wondering if you guys had any good tips for me. Or you could share what you did!

My stats are kinda low so this essay could be my make or break.

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