Glasperlenspieler

I'm not familiar with UChicago but as others have said here in the past, the prestige of their other departments does not necessarily (and many have argued it in fact does not at all) translate to the MAPH program. The main thing I did want to say is to not be fooled by offers of partial scholarships. 1.5k is just a small percentage of what you'll be paying, so ultimately it's just like a store offering you a tiny discount (if you buy this $3000 couch we'll waive delivery). It sounds like a ploy more than anything else (consider that even NYU's maligned cash-grab MA offers "awards" up to 60% of tuition, but of course, you're still paying 40% which translates to thousands and thousands of dollars).

If you're more interested in the lecteur position and literature program, then I don't see any problem with doing that instead of the US Masters! Like @Glasperlenspieler mentioned, most programs will evaluate you based on your research interests and writing sample. The only thing I would maybe consider is to make sure your credits would transfer to a PhD program so that you won't have to repeat a large portion of the masters. Also, I am someone who was accepted to a PhD program with just a bachelor's, so I can say from firsthand experience that it's possible, it might just take more work and being more varied in your choice of school. I worked for TAPIF for two years and then did another year as an ESL teacher in Seoul, so I guess that does count as valuable experience since almost all programs will require you to be a TA as part of your stipend. But, my research interests and statement of purpose were very important too!
I think either option would make you a strong candidate for PhD programs, so I would just choose whichever one you want to do more. 

I had forgotten about this meme...

Well, that's a lovely one sentence summary of academia. 

Semesters. I don't think any Canadian university operates on a quarter system (except maybe Quest, or maybe their thing is even more unusual. I don't remember.)

Everything is a tradeoff in the capitalist hellscape we're in. There's some good advice in this thread.

Although I'm absolutely in the "she's a skeeze" camp, both the video and Ramus' posts speak to conditions that seem accurate to me, and echo what I've heard from other late stage grad students or post-academics. It is very worth taking to heart. I know universities are pushing to do alt-ac better, but they're not good enough to be truly helpful yet.

I will also say that what Sigada says about the private sector is true. In this, I can put on my own wearied veteran hat, and add:
The work is typically mind-numbingly mundane. The corporate world is, largely, a very stupid and vacuous place. Prepare yourself for things like content mill writer jobs that prioritize mediocrity, vacuity and speed over quality, having to speak corporate-ese, working for horrible impersonal corporations that try to mask their cutthroat capitalism with nauseating veneers of humanity, and being subjected to backhanded gossip, token diversity statements, and all the social toxicities people complain about with academia - except with even less genuine effort at ethical behavior. Have you ever spoken to a really terrible business major? It's like that at least 40 hours a week.  You may or may not have the time and means for vacation and hobbies; if you do have the time and means, it may or may not be scarce. I have friends who have, largely, pretty engaging and well-paying jobs who regularly have to work 60+ hours for deadlines, have 10 vacation days a year, and the like. And again: the work tends to be mildly offputting at best.  The tradeoff is generally more job security, but you still don't necessarily have a whole lot of that. I have learned to never treat a job as secure. What I can be secure about, I guess, is that I can typically find another job if the present one doesn't work out.  Ramus, I hope your tech job continues to work out for you, but I have to warn you that after a couple more years you may feel as I did: as though your brain is melting out of your ears. I had a reasonable job that I was good at, too - flexible schedule, a modicum of creativity to keep things a bit interesting sometimes. Still absolutely mind-numbing at the end of the day. I would gently suggest that lionizing the middle-class white collar life based on your experience at a single job is a bit tone deaf. A lot of people, even among the middle class - who are so much luckier than those in the lower-class or gig economies - are struggling mightily.
There are jobs with more meaningful work to be found in the nonprofit, publishing, high school teaching, or public sectors. They can be great, and they can also be unbelievably overworked and underpaid. It's up to the individual to decide if you think going for that is a good idea, or if you think you can get one of the better positions. 
For my part, I am ecstatic to have 5-6 years out from the workforce, and if I don't get a TT job I will go back to what I was doing. I know that even if retirement takes a bit longer as a result, I will be happy I made this choice. 
Regardless, the best piece of advice here is that you need to be proactive. Start working on your alt-ac contingency plan now, and the most important thing is to get job experience. Do internships, basically. My university has an internship program especially for humanities PhDs that funds internships that would otherwise be unfunded. Take advantage of things like this - or, just take advantage of your summer stipends to get internships. Entry-level jobs require experience and you need to get it before you graduate. Discuss with career counselors and just look at job descriptions on Indeed or what have you. Take a look at the requirements and the skills section. Decide on what you think you can tolerate, and work at gaining those requirements and skills. Don't rely on your professors and don't postpone this. Basically, dedicate a couple of summers to internships, and cultivate skills and your network throughout.
I'll add one final thing: this entire discussion dodges the systemic and political dimension to all of this. Academia needs reform: the tuition problem, working conditions, societal devaluation of the humanities and obscene "professionalization" and corporatization of everything are all huge problems that need our activism, whether or not we get TT jobs. The answer to academia's problems, in this broader scheme, is not "encourage the people who want to get PhDs to join the white collar workforce," even if that makes sense to some degree from the personal angle.  
However we hack it, the key is to try to wrangle a livable working life out of an economic system that is not designed in our favor. Best of luck to all of us with that.

Having been around for both the original (2015 was my first year of my doctorate), and being currently on the job market (30 applications, 1 interview, 8 outstanding, in case you want to know how that is), some thoughts in no particular order:
A PhD from a program with substantial resources (note: this is not equivalent to a top program, though there is substantial overlap) is still a worthwhile experience in and of itself. $30-35k yr plus good health insurance isn't nothing in this pre-postapocalyptic hellscape. Plus, I've had multi-month paid trips to Europe each year. My teaching load was light but engaging, and I thoroughly enjoyed the process of researching and writing my dissertation. The experience wasn't stress free, but it wasn't a bad sort of stress. A PhD in the humanities takes more than 5 years. Make sure you're funded accordingly (part of the first point). Going to a program without those resources, one where you have to scrape and claw and hustle to get even your basic needs met, is not a worthwhile experience. It's just volunteering to be exploited based on a lie as to future possibilities. The actual line between the two situations is a bit fuzzy, but err on the side of caution. Do not apply to programs just to make sure you go to grad school. I have very little sympathy for those who have recently finished their PhD and are left jobless or in adjunct hell. This includes some of my own friends. Yes, that's more than a bit brutal to say. But at this point, if you didn't know what the academic job market looked like going into it, that's on you. There are abundant resources that not only provide ample warning as to what lies ahead, but that also explain how to set yourself up for a non-academic career outside the academy, or at least outside a traditional professorship track. If the state of the world on the other side of your degree blindsides you, that's because you ignored several hundred flashing neon warning signs accompanied by air-raid sirens, or thought that, for some reason, they were trying to warn everyone else besides you. Have a plan for your post-degree future before you apply. That plan should both identify several possible career paths, most of which should not be "be a professor", and have intermediate goals that set up those career paths roughly mapped out.  Do not adjunct. Do anything other than adjunct. Hopefully that's useful.

imo it doesn't hurt to try to discuss counter offers and try to get more funding or bonus funding, like a summer of guaranteed funding, extra travel funds, etc. I had a few offers and tried to negotiate for a better offer from the school that I now attend. I was unsuccessful but it didn't create weird vibes between me and the DGS; the DGS is actually even on my committee now so it's all chill. I think they understand you're not making a lot and you want to maximize your funding.  

Program rep is a big thing, especially if you plan to go on the academic job market, but personal happiness and health is super important as well. That's the thing I always tell prospective grad students to keep in mind.  A bad fit in terms of location/mentor/program makes it exponentially more likely that a person won't complete their program (and a LOT of people who start a PhD never finish it.  My cohort started with 8--three of us finished).  You want to look at that comfort level--on the virtual visit, get as much information as you can.  Ask prospective advisors questions.  Ask them to explain what an average advising meeting might look like.  Ask them what their expectations of advisees might be in terms of production of chapters, lists, etc.  See if you vibe with them.  If it's awkward now, it probably won't get better in the program.  You can also ask them questions about how grad students make it on the stipend.  Do they do a lot of room shares?  Is there campus grad housing?
If you get the sense that you can complete your degree there, to me, Toronto is the clear choice for a medievalist.  If you have doubts, though, and feel more comfortable at Rutgers or IU (both excellent programs, and IU also has a stellar rep for medieval), then that would be the better choice.  
Get the information that you need, and if you still have doubts after the visit, you can always ask them for more time to make your final decision.

The full list of schools is here: https://cgsnet.org/ckfinder/userfiles/files/CGS_April15_Resolution_Oct2020Revision.pdf
They really shouldn't be pressuring you to make a decision before April 15th.

For better or worse, the opportunity to do philosophy full-time takes place within certain economic, cultural, and institutional structures. If one wants to have that opportunity and one wants that opportunity to last, it's important to understand those structures and what you have to do exist within them. The willful dismissal of these structures is naive.
I happen to think the continental/analytic distinction is pretty philosophically useless. However, that is not to say that the distinction doesn't play and institutional and cultural role in academia. 

Under neoliberalism, nothing related to the humanities at the university is going to get "better." That's just the endpoint for me.

Economy goes down, applications to grad school go up.
Also, since several grad programs are not accepting applications, the number of programs that you can apply to is lower. It's thus not too surprising that the programs accepting applications will see an increase in applications.

I think "there are no safety schools" should be understood as "there are no safety schools among the programs worth attending." With a funding structure like that (not to mention that I'm not sure I've ever heard of anyone talk about Dallas's PhD program in philosophy), I'd be inclined to say it falls in the category of programs not worth attending.

Title says it all. It clutters the page, and that's what the forum is for! 
But to the person asking about the University of Toronto: they don't do interviews 

I would echo Ramus' statements, and also add that I find it's a lot easier to call the department directly than to wait for emails.  They really should be able to answer those questions, and they won't change their decision or have bad judgements of you because you ask.  Instead, asking shows you value yourself as a candidate; it's a good position to be in! 

Tbh, that's usually a bad sign. Programs that fund fully are vocal and transparent about it.
Don't wait. If they don't fully fund, you should turn them down immediately. There is no good reason to even consider a humanities program that isn't fully funded.
It shouldn't feel weird to you, because it's not going to be weird for them. They get this same thing every cycle. Be direct: "Can you please tell me about the nature of your funding package? How many years of funding do you offer? Are all years guaranteed? What's the annual stipend? What are the health care benefits? What, if any, fees are students expected to pay?"

Not to be a contrarian, but many universities that have both a law school and a graduate school do have some sort of an option for a Ph.D./J.D. dual degree program. That being said, the degree to which this is ad hoc and the fields one is allowed to pursue for the Ph.D. vary. Schools seem generally more open to a J.D. in conjunction with a Ph.D. in philosophy, political science, or economics (see NYU: https://www.law.nyu.edu/jdadmissions/dualdegreeprograms/jdma). I don't see many schools that really have a pathway for doing an English Ph.D. in tandem with a law degree.

Actually, the odds are a bit worse than that because many of the same students will be accepted at more than a few programs. So, even if all programs have an acceptance rate of 5% (say, 10/200 students) but aim for a class of 5 students, you apply to 20 programs, and there are 400 students applying to those programs, your odds of getting in can be as low as 25%. Obviously the numbers aren't quite as straightforward as that, since there are more students applying to more programs, sometimes an abnormally high proportion of acceptees matriculate, etc., but the point is that the rate of matriculation is a better indicator of your overall likelihood of acceptance

"Keywords" might be a bit too reductive. Certainly they don't read all 15-30 pages of everyone's writing sample. It is more likely that they will read the first and last paragraphs of each sample to ascertain 1) your area of interest, 2) your superficial writing ability, 3) your capacity to frame a philosophical problem in a small space, and other similar things.
In any case, once they narrow down the number of applicants to, say, the top 50, someone on the committee definitely will read your whole sample. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence on this site where people say that so and so person at program x told them that they loved their sample. (I am sure that the person couldn't care less about an good undergraduate philosophy essay, let alone love one, but I digress). I also have talked to the current DGS at my MA program, and it is guaranteed that your sample will be read by someone more or less in its entirety.
So no, they don't simply have keywords in mind to weed out applicants. You need to have a really good sample from start to finish.

Unlike SOPs, which are short and very formulaic, I am skeptical about the value of looking at a writing sample example. Theoretically, you should model your sample after a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal.
If I were to send you a paper on Kant that got me into UCSD, but your AOI is philosophy of mind, there would be no value in you looking at my sample. You should try to model your writing after scholars that your like and who are in your field. 
With SOPs, you don't see that kind of writing outside of grad apps, so it is good to read a few examples.
You should give your sample to anyone and everyone who is willing to read it. I used a term paper, and got feedback from my professor. I presented the paper at a conference, I gave it to multiple friends, I organized a graduate application workshop with my MA cohort and had some of them read it, etc. I probably had 6 different sets of eyes on it from inception to submission. 

You can also try prompting faculty to talk about the one thing they always really want to talk about: themselves.

Economy goes down, applications to grad school go up.
Also, since several grad programs are not accepting applications, the number of programs that you can apply to is lower. It's thus not too surprising that the programs accepting applications will see an increase in applications.

Economy goes down, applications to grad school go up.
Also, since several grad programs are not accepting applications, the number of programs that you can apply to is lower. It's thus not too surprising that the programs accepting applications will see an increase in applications.

Economy goes down, applications to grad school go up.
Also, since several grad programs are not accepting applications, the number of programs that you can apply to is lower. It's thus not too surprising that the programs accepting applications will see an increase in applications.