Jumbo Juice

I would look at their placement records closely. Notre Dame's is enormously better than Ohio State's.

In case this wasn't clear, I am a current Tufts student, and one of my interlocutors is a former Tufts student. Obviously, neither of us are privy to the details of faculty contracts, but when I cite placement data and say that everything seems copacetic among the faculty at Tufts, this is indeed coming from a place of knowledge.

"Is this perhaps because of some kind of upheaval in the department?" If there is, they have concealed it well from the students. "which in some years has been upwards of half" If you are referring to last year, the final tally, AFAIK, was 5 Master's students admitted to philosophy PhD programs and 2 (maybe 3?) shut out. " it would appear that while 90 students have entered the MA program at Tufts since 2009, only 25 have been admitted into PhD programs in philosophy. This means Tufts has an overall placement rate of 28 percent,." No, it doesn't, because the first figure includes the 25-30 students attending at the time the report was published, while the second figures ignores students who were accepted into PhD programs but decided to pursue other careers. The website is misleading, but the APA guide isn't any better. I should mention that Tufts had excellent placement this year, comparable to 2012 and 2013. If anyone is admitted or waitlisted at Tufts and has further questions, feel free to PM me.

Important caveat: especially if you are attending a Canadian school, your adviser may have inside knowledge of Canadian philosophy Master's programs that I and most of the other posters here lack. That being said, judging by the Leiter specialty rankings, Western Ontario has one of the top departments for philosophy of physics/science in the world and is also strong in history of philosophy, philosophy of mathematics, and feminist philosophy. If I were you, I'd at least speak to a current Master's student there (and at UBC and Dalhousie, if you are accepted) and ask about recent placement before making a decision. Note that all three institutions also grant PhDs (although Dalhousie only rarely), and at many schools with doctoral programs lowly Master's students end up being treated as afterthoughts. Because this varies in unpredictable ways not correlated with faculty quality, it is particularly important to speak with current students and obtain placement information. I don't know if you've looked already, but here's UBC's Master's placement record: http://philosophy.ubc.ca/alumni/ma-graduates/ And here are the Leiter specialty rankings by department (Canada is towards the bottom, just above Australasia): http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/departments.asp

I think you're experiencing apophenia, OP. From 2002-2010, Toronto placed two students into tenure-track positions at what are now top 30 universities: UC San Diego (2) Had 6 students take post-docs at top 30 universities: University of Toronto (2) University of St. Andrews University of Michigan UCLA University of Oxford And had 8 additional tenure-track or equivalent placements at Leiter-ranked schools: York University (2) University of Western Ontario Georgetown University Birkbeck, University of London University of Alberta McGill University Syracuse University It also had TT placements at UI Urbana-Champaign (2), Vanderbilt, and several top SLACs.

Tufts student here. Placement data cited earlier inaccurate on several counts; most importantly, missing shut-outs and one student enrolled at Arizona. Tuition estimates insane, not even in ballpark. Tuition is $44,000 for entire program (not annually), with standard tuition waver and TAships that comes down to around $5,000-$10,000. Cost of living in Somerville indeed high, $30,000 for two years not unreasonable, although could be done for less. Total price tag <$40,000. Still a lot, nowhere near quoted figure. Suspect Brandeis costs comparable, no firsthand knowledge. Tufts student, away.