Yeah, the things I listed were mostly preferential, but to address a few things you said- *Size-wise, the Athens region may be bigger, but the Madison downtown is much bigger than the Athens downtown. Winters are rainy in Athens but at least it doesn't stick around and turn into disgusting brown-gray ice everywhere (admittedly, a preference thing), and Athens winters are ~3 months while Madison winters are ~5 months. *I felt landlocked in Wisconsin (funny how that works out). In Georgia, there were tons of opportunities to go to the river and near by lakes, and the ocean is ~5 hours away. That being said, those lakes are awesome up in Madison, and something truly unique to the city. *The laid back thing might be hard to explain, but I found there was this certain "anxiety" about people in Madison. Drove faster, were less patient- things like that. It probably has to do with the fact that Southerners are "slow". *Madison probably has more opportunities for "refined" music, but Athens brings in bigger rock/pop/rap/etc. names more consistently and there is an abundance of smaller acts every night of the week. *There is definitely more after-graduation opportunity in Madison, but we're arguing merits of "college towns" here, which might be why Athens is such a great one- it's more insular, and forces people to move on after graduation. *Also, just want to add food. Southern food was probably the number 1 cultural thing I missed while living in Madison. Midwestern cuisine seemed a little bland for me, even the ethnic restaurants seemed a little watered down. It was the only place I ever lived where I could confidently order a 5/5 spice level at a Thai restaurant.

I definitely have a bias, but yeah, Madison is basically the Athens of Wisconsin, just like Austin is the Madison of Texas, just like Lincoln is the Austin of Nebraska, just like... etc. Admittedly, that might also play a little bit into my bias against Madison as well. Nearly everyone I talked to acted like Madison is this city on the hill (and I'm all for hometown pride) but most of these people had never left the state of Wisconsin. Regardless though, both are great college towns, and undergrad at both universities are lucky.