She had also been awarded a Marshall Scholarship the same year but turned it down in favor of the Rhodes. She was the recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship and began her postgraduate study in 1995 at Lincoln College, Oxford. At graduation, she was awarded the John Gardner Fellowship. She earned a degree in public policy at Stanford in 1994. While a freshman, she was outed as a lesbian by the college newspaper when an interview with her was published before she could tell her parents. She is a graduate of Castro Valley High School and attended Stanford University. Referring to John Hughes films, Maddow has described herself as being 'a cross between the jock and the antisocial girl' in high school.

Maddow was a competitive athlete and participated in high school volleyball, basketball, and swimming. Maddow has said her family is 'very, very Catholic' and she grew up in a community that her mother has described as 'very conservative'. Maddow's Canadian mother, originally from Newfoundland and Labrador, has English and Irish ancestry. Her paternal grandmother was of Dutch descent. Her paternal grandfather was from Jewish family (the original family surname being 'Medvedof'), who arrived in the United States from the Russian Empire. Her mother, Elaine (née Gosse), was a school program administrator.

Maddow, is a former United States Air Force captain who resigned his commission the year before her birth and then worked as a lawyer for the East Bay Municipal Utility District.

Maddow was born in Castro Valley, California. Maddow holds a bachelor's degree in public policy from Stanford University and a doctorate in political science from the University of Oxford and is the first openly lesbian anchor to host a major prime-time news program in the United States. Maddow has received multiple Emmy Awards for her broadcasting work and in 2021 received a Grammy Award for the audiobook version of Blowout (2019). Her syndicated talk radio program of the same name aired on Air America Radio from 2005 to 2010. Maddow hosts The Rachel Maddow Show, a weekly television show on MSNBC, and serves as the cable network's special event co-anchor. Rachel Anne Maddow ( / ˈ m æ d oʊ/ ⓘ, MAD-oh born April 1, 1973) is an American television news program host and liberal political commentator.

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