perpetuavix

I'm nearing the end of my philosophy PhD career (finally!) and I am not pursuing any academic jobs whatsoever. I wrote several very gloomy paragraphs about how bad the market is, which has always been true, because graduate programs are incentivized to overproduce PhDs. And I think the OP's friend is straight up wrong that going to a top 20 (or top x) program ensures (or honestly, substantially increases) success on the market. 
But I will limit my commentary on the academic market and instead focus on what I think grad students can do to be competitive for non academic jobs. I agree with above that you should expect to look outside academia, and perhaps be pleasantly surprised if you get an academic job. 
My biggest tip: look for experiences that aren't teaching or research that build skills that other jobs care about. If your department has any roles that aren't traditional TA or RA jobs, apply for those. Join the committee for your grad conference, or assist a professor with planning a workshop. Seek out roles in professional organizations; the APA has a graduate council, but more specialized organizations in your subfield have other ways to get involved, too. Get a twitter, do some public philosophy, or write an op ed. Use your tuition waiver to take a language class or a class outside your field. 
If you have no idea what skills might be relevant outside of academia, use your university's career center. They will have workshops all the time, and you don't need to go to all of them. But I can almost guarantee they have one that involves how to identify academic skills that transfer to non-academic jobs. If you go to one of these early in your career, it will also help you identify experiences you can seek out in the meantime to build skills. There are also lots of good resources online for people transitioning out of academia; I recommend The Professor is Out facebook group. 
Also: networking is stupid important to any job search, academic or not. Many academics are bad at it, to say the least (I include myself in this category). But maintain a LinkedIn, don't forget you do know people outside of academia, and when you update your CV, update your resume, too. 
Be realistic about what you can do to prepare. You can't do all of these things and write 19 publications while in grad school. But you can get a variety of experiences and publish a few papers, too. 

I'm nearing the end of my philosophy PhD career (finally!) and I am not pursuing any academic jobs whatsoever. I wrote several very gloomy paragraphs about how bad the market is, which has always been true, because graduate programs are incentivized to overproduce PhDs. And I think the OP's friend is straight up wrong that going to a top 20 (or top x) program ensures (or honestly, substantially increases) success on the market. 
But I will limit my commentary on the academic market and instead focus on what I think grad students can do to be competitive for non academic jobs. I agree with above that you should expect to look outside academia, and perhaps be pleasantly surprised if you get an academic job. 
My biggest tip: look for experiences that aren't teaching or research that build skills that other jobs care about. If your department has any roles that aren't traditional TA or RA jobs, apply for those. Join the committee for your grad conference, or assist a professor with planning a workshop. Seek out roles in professional organizations; the APA has a graduate council, but more specialized organizations in your subfield have other ways to get involved, too. Get a twitter, do some public philosophy, or write an op ed. Use your tuition waiver to take a language class or a class outside your field. 
If you have no idea what skills might be relevant outside of academia, use your university's career center. They will have workshops all the time, and you don't need to go to all of them. But I can almost guarantee they have one that involves how to identify academic skills that transfer to non-academic jobs. If you go to one of these early in your career, it will also help you identify experiences you can seek out in the meantime to build skills. There are also lots of good resources online for people transitioning out of academia; I recommend The Professor is Out facebook group. 
Also: networking is stupid important to any job search, academic or not. Many academics are bad at it, to say the least (I include myself in this category). But maintain a LinkedIn, don't forget you do know people outside of academia, and when you update your CV, update your resume, too. 
Be realistic about what you can do to prepare. You can't do all of these things and write 19 publications while in grad school. But you can get a variety of experiences and publish a few papers, too. 

I'm nearing the end of my philosophy PhD career (finally!) and I am not pursuing any academic jobs whatsoever. I wrote several very gloomy paragraphs about how bad the market is, which has always been true, because graduate programs are incentivized to overproduce PhDs. And I think the OP's friend is straight up wrong that going to a top 20 (or top x) program ensures (or honestly, substantially increases) success on the market. 
But I will limit my commentary on the academic market and instead focus on what I think grad students can do to be competitive for non academic jobs. I agree with above that you should expect to look outside academia, and perhaps be pleasantly surprised if you get an academic job. 
My biggest tip: look for experiences that aren't teaching or research that build skills that other jobs care about. If your department has any roles that aren't traditional TA or RA jobs, apply for those. Join the committee for your grad conference, or assist a professor with planning a workshop. Seek out roles in professional organizations; the APA has a graduate council, but more specialized organizations in your subfield have other ways to get involved, too. Get a twitter, do some public philosophy, or write an op ed. Use your tuition waiver to take a language class or a class outside your field. 
If you have no idea what skills might be relevant outside of academia, use your university's career center. They will have workshops all the time, and you don't need to go to all of them. But I can almost guarantee they have one that involves how to identify academic skills that transfer to non-academic jobs. If you go to one of these early in your career, it will also help you identify experiences you can seek out in the meantime to build skills. There are also lots of good resources online for people transitioning out of academia; I recommend The Professor is Out facebook group. 
Also: networking is stupid important to any job search, academic or not. Many academics are bad at it, to say the least (I include myself in this category). But maintain a LinkedIn, don't forget you do know people outside of academia, and when you update your CV, update your resume, too. 
Be realistic about what you can do to prepare. You can't do all of these things and write 19 publications while in grad school. But you can get a variety of experiences and publish a few papers, too. 

I'm nearing the end of my philosophy PhD career (finally!) and I am not pursuing any academic jobs whatsoever. I wrote several very gloomy paragraphs about how bad the market is, which has always been true, because graduate programs are incentivized to overproduce PhDs. And I think the OP's friend is straight up wrong that going to a top 20 (or top x) program ensures (or honestly, substantially increases) success on the market. 
But I will limit my commentary on the academic market and instead focus on what I think grad students can do to be competitive for non academic jobs. I agree with above that you should expect to look outside academia, and perhaps be pleasantly surprised if you get an academic job. 
My biggest tip: look for experiences that aren't teaching or research that build skills that other jobs care about. If your department has any roles that aren't traditional TA or RA jobs, apply for those. Join the committee for your grad conference, or assist a professor with planning a workshop. Seek out roles in professional organizations; the APA has a graduate council, but more specialized organizations in your subfield have other ways to get involved, too. Get a twitter, do some public philosophy, or write an op ed. Use your tuition waiver to take a language class or a class outside your field. 
If you have no idea what skills might be relevant outside of academia, use your university's career center. They will have workshops all the time, and you don't need to go to all of them. But I can almost guarantee they have one that involves how to identify academic skills that transfer to non-academic jobs. If you go to one of these early in your career, it will also help you identify experiences you can seek out in the meantime to build skills. There are also lots of good resources online for people transitioning out of academia; I recommend The Professor is Out facebook group. 
Also: networking is stupid important to any job search, academic or not. Many academics are bad at it, to say the least (I include myself in this category). But maintain a LinkedIn, don't forget you do know people outside of academia, and when you update your CV, update your resume, too. 
Be realistic about what you can do to prepare. You can't do all of these things and write 19 publications while in grad school. But you can get a variety of experiences and publish a few papers, too. 

I'm nearing the end of my philosophy PhD career (finally!) and I am not pursuing any academic jobs whatsoever. I wrote several very gloomy paragraphs about how bad the market is, which has always been true, because graduate programs are incentivized to overproduce PhDs. And I think the OP's friend is straight up wrong that going to a top 20 (or top x) program ensures (or honestly, substantially increases) success on the market. 
But I will limit my commentary on the academic market and instead focus on what I think grad students can do to be competitive for non academic jobs. I agree with above that you should expect to look outside academia, and perhaps be pleasantly surprised if you get an academic job. 
My biggest tip: look for experiences that aren't teaching or research that build skills that other jobs care about. If your department has any roles that aren't traditional TA or RA jobs, apply for those. Join the committee for your grad conference, or assist a professor with planning a workshop. Seek out roles in professional organizations; the APA has a graduate council, but more specialized organizations in your subfield have other ways to get involved, too. Get a twitter, do some public philosophy, or write an op ed. Use your tuition waiver to take a language class or a class outside your field. 
If you have no idea what skills might be relevant outside of academia, use your university's career center. They will have workshops all the time, and you don't need to go to all of them. But I can almost guarantee they have one that involves how to identify academic skills that transfer to non-academic jobs. If you go to one of these early in your career, it will also help you identify experiences you can seek out in the meantime to build skills. There are also lots of good resources online for people transitioning out of academia; I recommend The Professor is Out facebook group. 
Also: networking is stupid important to any job search, academic or not. Many academics are bad at it, to say the least (I include myself in this category). But maintain a LinkedIn, don't forget you do know people outside of academia, and when you update your CV, update your resume, too. 
Be realistic about what you can do to prepare. You can't do all of these things and write 19 publications while in grad school. But you can get a variety of experiences and publish a few papers, too. 

I'm nearing the end of my philosophy PhD career (finally!) and I am not pursuing any academic jobs whatsoever. I wrote several very gloomy paragraphs about how bad the market is, which has always been true, because graduate programs are incentivized to overproduce PhDs. And I think the OP's friend is straight up wrong that going to a top 20 (or top x) program ensures (or honestly, substantially increases) success on the market. 
But I will limit my commentary on the academic market and instead focus on what I think grad students can do to be competitive for non academic jobs. I agree with above that you should expect to look outside academia, and perhaps be pleasantly surprised if you get an academic job. 
My biggest tip: look for experiences that aren't teaching or research that build skills that other jobs care about. If your department has any roles that aren't traditional TA or RA jobs, apply for those. Join the committee for your grad conference, or assist a professor with planning a workshop. Seek out roles in professional organizations; the APA has a graduate council, but more specialized organizations in your subfield have other ways to get involved, too. Get a twitter, do some public philosophy, or write an op ed. Use your tuition waiver to take a language class or a class outside your field. 
If you have no idea what skills might be relevant outside of academia, use your university's career center. They will have workshops all the time, and you don't need to go to all of them. But I can almost guarantee they have one that involves how to identify academic skills that transfer to non-academic jobs. If you go to one of these early in your career, it will also help you identify experiences you can seek out in the meantime to build skills. There are also lots of good resources online for people transitioning out of academia; I recommend The Professor is Out facebook group. 
Also: networking is stupid important to any job search, academic or not. Many academics are bad at it, to say the least (I include myself in this category). But maintain a LinkedIn, don't forget you do know people outside of academia, and when you update your CV, update your resume, too. 
Be realistic about what you can do to prepare. You can't do all of these things and write 19 publications while in grad school. But you can get a variety of experiences and publish a few papers, too. 

I'm nearing the end of my philosophy PhD career (finally!) and I am not pursuing any academic jobs whatsoever. I wrote several very gloomy paragraphs about how bad the market is, which has always been true, because graduate programs are incentivized to overproduce PhDs. And I think the OP's friend is straight up wrong that going to a top 20 (or top x) program ensures (or honestly, substantially increases) success on the market. 
But I will limit my commentary on the academic market and instead focus on what I think grad students can do to be competitive for non academic jobs. I agree with above that you should expect to look outside academia, and perhaps be pleasantly surprised if you get an academic job. 
My biggest tip: look for experiences that aren't teaching or research that build skills that other jobs care about. If your department has any roles that aren't traditional TA or RA jobs, apply for those. Join the committee for your grad conference, or assist a professor with planning a workshop. Seek out roles in professional organizations; the APA has a graduate council, but more specialized organizations in your subfield have other ways to get involved, too. Get a twitter, do some public philosophy, or write an op ed. Use your tuition waiver to take a language class or a class outside your field. 
If you have no idea what skills might be relevant outside of academia, use your university's career center. They will have workshops all the time, and you don't need to go to all of them. But I can almost guarantee they have one that involves how to identify academic skills that transfer to non-academic jobs. If you go to one of these early in your career, it will also help you identify experiences you can seek out in the meantime to build skills. There are also lots of good resources online for people transitioning out of academia; I recommend The Professor is Out facebook group. 
Also: networking is stupid important to any job search, academic or not. Many academics are bad at it, to say the least (I include myself in this category). But maintain a LinkedIn, don't forget you do know people outside of academia, and when you update your CV, update your resume, too. 
Be realistic about what you can do to prepare. You can't do all of these things and write 19 publications while in grad school. But you can get a variety of experiences and publish a few papers, too. 

I’m here for this. I actually think you should only do a PhD in philosophy if you plan to work outside academia afterward, because otherwise you’re just getting a degree in financial instability on the adjunct circuit. If an academic job happens to pan out and you want it, great. If not, you didn’t plan on it anyway, so nothing lost. 

Dear Fellow Strugglers,   I know that we are all on pins and needles waiting for the admissions results (I so am), but I would like to take time and ask you about your hopes and expectations for after the PhD. I've recently talked to a couple of guys fresh out of PhD school, and their outlook on the academic job market was very grim. They told me there are 500 candidates to a post-doc spot worldwide, and the only way to beat the system is if you've done your PhD at a TOP20 program. The guys did theirs at LOGOS (Barcelona Uni - #45 faculty in the QS), both are top talents with scholarships and first publications in respected journals.   They also had a lot to say about how the modern philosophy academia turned into its own caricature, with rigid, arcane rules about what to research (and what not), how to write papers (and how not to) and with the most minute of differences in your SoP or LoR (like the sequence of the sentences) making or breaking your chances of being admitted.   All this has made me think again about my academic future, as hellbent on making it happen as I am. I know that many of us feel the same way about much of what I've written above, and I thought that we could share our thoughts and strategies of coping. Is what you've heard in line with what I have? How do you go about your plans knowing what you know?   Thanks for all the reactions! We're in this together      

I wouldn't recommend a Philosophy PhD to anyone unless they're comfortable with the likelihood that they won't get a good academic job afterward. All this is consistent with giving the academic job market a shot, but one should have an open mind to other possibilities too, and to some extent prepare for them.

It seems like most people don't contact professors in philosophy departments; it does seem like the norm in other disciplines, though. I'm sure there are prospective philosophy students who have sent emails to POIs and successfully gotten into that school, but there was substantial debate about whether or not you should specify names of POIs in your SOP, which is a much milder thing to do. Personally, I didn't contact anyone before applying (although I did specify POIs in all my SOPs). 
The advice I got on the matter was this: Only email someone who you would want to talk to even if weren't applying to their graduate school. You can email a professor with a question about something of theirs that you read or a conference presentation, but if you're emailing them just because you want to go to their school, they will probably know that. They also may not have any involvement in the admission process (this varies a lot by school, but the committee is often just a few professors), and even if you do have a positive interaction with them, it might not count for anything come admissions time. 
Surefire's point about being able to ask something specific is really important, though. Maybe the person you want to work with is close to retiring and you want to find out if they're planning to accept students (although how you would ask that politely is beyond me). I think that asking a professor at a prospective program for advice on your SOP or about your fit would be ill-advised; the onus is on you to find the answer to those questions, or at least ask your own advisors. But if you have a specific question that you need answered (that cannot be found on the department's website), then it might be worth emailing a professor. 

Seattle is generally a pretty safe place. It has more property crime than most cities, but it has less violent crime. University District, the neighborhood around campus, has more crime than some areas, but Blakely Village and Laurel Village are away from the worst parts of UDistrict, so I'd imagine it's plenty safe. You can look at Seattle PD's data for a more complete picture here: https://www.seattle.gov/police/information-and-data/online-crime-maps
 
Summer is a good time to find an apartment; summer is always a popular time to move in a city, and it's before most students are back. As you get closer to September, the rental market is a little more competitive, but it's still pretty easy to find a place to live in Seattle. You'll generally find a lot of apartments that are available at the beginning of June, July, August, and September, and a few that are available in the middle of the month. You can look at apartments now to see prices and what will generally be available when you're looking in the summer, but you shouldn't expect to see something now that will still be available in a few months. You can reasonably start looking at apartments two weeks--a month at the most--before you expect to move.
The poster above gave you a good list of neighborhoods. Just make sure you check google maps to see how long your commute will be. A transit pass is included in your tuition, so most people take the bus or ride a bike to get to campus. Parking on campus is insanely expensive, so don't plan to drive to campus unless you want to spend $1200 on parking over the year.
 

No just risky, but also really misguided. The ranking of your program can be a bolster and make getting a job easier, but as far as developing yourself as an academic it just isn't enough. Being a successful academic really depends a lot on yourself as a scholar: pushing yourself, networking, reading everything ever and luck. Don't get wrapped up in the game of try to get the most prestigious name on your C.V., and instead just focus on your own development as a philosopher. You can do that nearly anywhere. Sometimes it would even be easier at a lower ranked school with faculty that have more time to give you more attention. 
 
It would be different if you didn't *click* with any of the professors, the campus, the students, etc. and just didn't feel right about the schools you got into. But a good placement record doesn't guarentee a job, and your much better off focusing on being maleable in the market and just being a good all-around academic. 
This is all just my opinion though, of course.
 
 
Edit: Oh and I just want to say that sometimes students that are stellar applicants as BA applicants dont do as well in the MA applicant pile. It is more rare to be a crazily dedicated and focused BA student than an MA one. 

Placement matters, and it matters a lot, but it's not the only thing that matters. Visit, if you can. That's probably the best way to get some sense of whether or not either is a program where you can succeed. Placement only matters if you actually graduate, and there's a lot of attrition in PhD programs. Here's a source saying that the median rate of completion within eight years for philosophy PhD programs is about 40% (meaning 60% of students don't finish or take longer than eight years). I choose a much lower ranked school (top 50 but barely) over a higher one (top 15) because it had a better community and a lot more support, which I found out by visiting. It also helped that the 'lower ranked' school had the better climate (which should matter to you, even if you aren't a woman or POC) and good placement for my AOS/intended supervisor. I also don't put that much stock in PGR, which made it a lot easier to rely on my own impressions of the programs and information I gathered. Deciding between programs isn't easy, and I don't think it can be boiled down to just looking at the placement pages, even if placement is an important factor. 

Placement matters, and it matters a lot, but it's not the only thing that matters. Visit, if you can. That's probably the best way to get some sense of whether or not either is a program where you can succeed. Placement only matters if you actually graduate, and there's a lot of attrition in PhD programs. Here's a source saying that the median rate of completion within eight years for philosophy PhD programs is about 40% (meaning 60% of students don't finish or take longer than eight years). I choose a much lower ranked school (top 50 but barely) over a higher one (top 15) because it had a better community and a lot more support, which I found out by visiting. It also helped that the 'lower ranked' school had the better climate (which should matter to you, even if you aren't a woman or POC) and good placement for my AOS/intended supervisor. I also don't put that much stock in PGR, which made it a lot easier to rely on my own impressions of the programs and information I gathered. Deciding between programs isn't easy, and I don't think it can be boiled down to just looking at the placement pages, even if placement is an important factor. 

I think it's a bit obsessive and pointless to try to work out one's "odds".
The biggest point to be made here is that the process is far from cut and dry. Stats really don't mean shit. Nobody cares about your GRE and GPA if other applicants are a much better fit for the program. Nobody cares about how famous your letter writers are if they consider your writing sample to be uninteresting and/or underdeveloped. Nobody cares about your publications/institutional prestige if your statement of purpose is blunderous or you don't seem like a good match for the people in the department, both in terms of research and personality (I've talked to people on hiring committees who swore up and down that the person who eventually gets the job is often the person, of the finalists, who got on with the current faculty best -- they're building an intellectual community, and they want people who seem like they'd get along great).
Moreover, I think this obsession about an applicant's "stats" has grown out of the "How exactly does this process work and what exactly do I need to be successful?" mentality, which is, in many aspects, absurd and dangerously obsessive. GPA/GRE/University prestige (and even publications!) give very little, if any, indication that one is a good philosopher; one shows their competency as a philosopher through their writing sample, a well-written statement of purpose, and writing interesting papers and making interesting contributions in classes that your letter-writers will mention. There are too many very gray aspects of consideration that hugely weigh in on the determination of admissions decisions to say that "one is likely or more likely than most to be successful with x, y, and z." As in myriad situations, the attempt to quantify things is not only unhelpful, but also serves to cover up other aspects of the situation that matter quite a lot.
In the fictional words of Albert Camus (taken from my favorite edition of Existential Comics, "The Analytics at the Bar"), "It's more of an art than a science, old boy."

This only holds if each trial is independent of the others, which doesn't seem likely. 

I don't disagree that prestige matters in philosophy. The further along I get, the clearer it is to me that it matters a lot. What I'm saying is that our usual assessment of what's prestigious isn't tracking the reality of placement especially well. Once you start to count the distribution of PhDs (in ranked programs), you see that it's not actually closely correlated to individual program rank. Oxford matters, in that order. Princeton, Harvard, Toronto, and Pittsburgh also matter, but less (and in that order). MIT, Berkeley, Cambridge, Stanford, and UCLA  matter significantly less (and in that order). Then Yale, Rutgers, Michigan, Chicago, Cornell, Columbia, and Western. NYU, Brown, Arizona, the Sorbonne... And then you get below 1% of placements. Even at the top end, Oxford only nets you 8.4% of placements into ranked programs (+ Canada).
Yes, those are (almost) all ranked programs. The point is just that their PGR rank doesn't translate into their placement rank (at best, a high PGR rank correlates to the loose category "1% or more of placements"). And even where their placement rank is concerned, the only programs placing very large numbers of people are the first few.
You can see the raw data for yourself (if it's still up) here.
 
The reality, I'm afraid, is that everyone struggles on the job market. Even the "sure" bets aren't that certain. I know plenty of Princeton and Oxford grads who've struggled. And the market is not going to be any better in six or seven years.

I think you misunderstood me. You claimed that 75% of all hires went to the T10 ranked departments. The data you cite indicates that 88% of 2013-4's hires came from Leiter-ranked programs. That's a significant difference. I have no quibble with saying that most of the hiring comes from ranked programs. My problem is with the claim that three quarters of hires come from the PGR T10, which is both false and, as I've explained, misleading.
I am not talking about the difference between getting a PhD at a ranked vs. an unranked program. I'm saying that even where ranked programs are concerned, it's only a handful of programs that are killing it in terms of placement (into MA- and PhD-granting programs), and their ordinal rank in the PGR doesn't seem to have a lot to do with it.

One thing worth pointing out, though I fear it's already kind of a cliche, is that {RANKED PROGRAMS} isn't extensionally equivalent to {PROGRAMS WORTH ATTENDING}. In fact, it could be argue that the two don't even overlap that much. Also keep in mind that there are programs that, over the years, have chosen not to be Leiter-ranked. 

I mean they also know that what's being tested in the AW section of the GRE (whatever it is that it actually does test) has nothing to do with academic philosophy. Also, every published philosophy article these days is heavily edited with lots of feedback. So being able to do that well may actually be a sign of professionalization. 
Everything I've read indicates the the verbal and quantitative sections of the GRE are of some value to admissions committees (how much varies), but the the AW is pretty much useless unless perhaps it's alarmingly low.

Thanks Justin! Daily Nous fans unite!

Just in time for decision day: the APDA project releases data on how over 100 departments have done placing their students in jobs (including types of jobs and AOSs): http://dailynous.com/2016/04/15/philosophy-placement-data-and-analysis-an-update/

Not really. Even the PGR's most vocal defenders will tell you there's basically no difference between PGR ranks for departments within about .5 of one another (on the mean score).
 
Prestige is a weird thing. It's definitely correlated to rank, but it can deviate significantly. All of the Ivy departments, for example, enjoy a lot of prestige, but for most of them it's totally out of proportion to their philosophical clout (this happens elsewhere too: think of departments housed in universities that don't have a geographical name). And some departments enjoy quite a bit of prestige, but in a fairly narrow band of subfields (think CMU). Departmental prestige is not at all linear, and it peters out pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, moving the deadline back those two weeks would most likely just move everything else back by the same. Departments will inevitably take as long as they can to arrange the visits, and students will similarly take their time to make their decisions. It's a self-bootstrapping problem.