johnallen

With all sincerity I meant no harm and was just sharing information. I didn't know you could post links as I'm fairly new at posting on this particular board. Some boards have prohibited the posting of links in the comments section. There is some truth to to socapp2017 post, out of the 9 PhD programs I applied to, I did get rejected from 5, but interviewed at 2 and received an offer ($20,000 fellowship/GA) from one so far. Good luck to you all. 

@aeroHans I am very sorry that UCLA or University of Washington (Seattle) did not provide you with funding. I am in agreement with @fuzzylogician statements that you should be prepared to not have funding the second and future years.
I applied to UW (Seattle) because one of my undergraduate professors was very impressed with the university's programs and suggested I applied. Like all the other schools I intended to apply to, I did my research and thought I was very thorough in eliminating schools where FULL funding was not available for the duration of their programs.
I was thrilled when I got the invitation to interview and tour UW facilities. But with all the research I did, was surprised when I heard that funding could be a problem after the first year, unless you won an outside fellowship/ scholarship.
Upon returning home, I sent an email to UW stating that I no longer wished to be considered for admission because FUNDING was one of my TOP criteria when applying to schools. 
I would not enroll at a school that did not provide funding and take the chance that I MIGHT be able to secure funding in the following years. This move is very risky.

I don't think it is. I don't think attending a PhD program without funding is ever a good idea. From a purely financial perspective, borrowing for 5 years of a PhD program is likely to cost you $160,000 to $200,000. Even if you only have to borrow for two years, that's still $80K to $120K depending on the total program costs. Even engineers don't make enough to very comfortably repay that. That's leaving aside the fact that if it's customary to offer PhDs full funding in your field, your department not offering one to you is a show of a lack of confidence in you as a candidate, and that may follow you through the department.
If you do decide to consider it, though, it will be important for you to ask the faculty what the likelihood of you getting funded in later years is.

If you go without funding, you should be fully prepared to not be able to secure more funding next year. If they had funding for you, the time when they are the most likely to give it to you is when they're trying to recruit you; once you're there, there is less of an incentive to do things for you. Either way, you can't count on it, and it's better to plan for the worse outcome. Suppose you don't get more funding, then what happens? You spend the not insignificant amount of money for your first year, you spend most of that time worrying about debt, applying for grants and fellowships, and also applying to other graduate programs, and you do the work of a first-year. Then you're in debt and have to start over, possibly even redoing your first-year work, since many programs won't accept transfer credits (and even less so from someone who dropped out of their previous program). I personally wouldn't take that risk, but if you do, be aware that that's a very real possible outcome. 

For what it's worth: 
You don't know if your chosen field/program is right for you until you try. Lots of people come in thinking they want thing A but learn that actually maybe thing B is better suited for them. Happens all the time, but you still have to take the chance, otherwise you'll never know.  What you describe sounds pretty common, and not at all an indication that you've made the wrong decision.  Academia has a ridiculous number of awkward, shy, and introverted people. Academics are most definitely not "on" all the time. Maybe SLPs are different, but I bet that just like any other profession, there are all kinds of people. Everyone has bad days. And while it's generally best to treat your academic program like a workplace and not snap at people in ways you wouldn't treat a work colleague, it's also entirely understandable if some days you're not as outgoing or happy as others. If you make genuine friends in your program, you'll find ways to vent during the days, and if not, I'm sure you'll find your friends and vent in the evenings. This is no different than any other job you'll have. 

Don't get so wrapped up in school name recognition. It's really all about the best fit (how the professors in the program match your specific research interests, and other personal factors). I kept telling everyone and was trying to convince myself that Berkeley was my top choice when I started my applications, and in the end, I didn't even apply to Berkeley because the research fit was quite poor. After that, I kept telling everyone and was trying to convince myself that Stanford was my top choice after I got my interview offers, but once again, the research fit was less than stellar (but I kept saying that it was my top choice during and after the interview). I wasn't accepted after the interview, which was actually a good thing. If Berkeley and Stanford were replaced by two lesser-known schools, but everything else about the programs/professors were kept the same, I wouldn't even have considered applying to them.

Best advice I can give: find a way to work with the ones you get along with more, and realize that you won't be able to change the ones who do things that annoy you or aren't compatible with your work style. It's better to work with people with compatible work styles even if their interests aren't as close to yours than with ones who are technically a better match but will drive you crazy. Also:  
- learn to do your own research and not to expect faculty to know about formal requirements; they so often don't.
- instead of saying "I sent you an email about this two weeks ago", reply to that original email whenever you follow up on a topic. 
- put everything you agree to with your committee in writing (send a summary email after meetings). They don't need to reply, but it's good to have a record. 
- (if you haven't yet,) make sure you pick committee members who get along with one another, and appoint a chair. The chair should have the final say in case of disagreements. And as with my advice above, having people who get along is more important than having the people with the closest match for your interests. 
- talk to more advanced students (if you're in your final year, find them at conferences, or email them!), and talk to them about their process. Learn about when the ball was dropped with them, and generally what the process was like. 
Also, for commiseration, I almost didn't apply for an NSFDRIG: first, I found out it existed totally by accident (long story), and when I asked if I should apply, my advisor said something like "oh, sure, that would be a good idea!" .. but I guarantee you that if I hadn't brought it up, they would have never told me. And then it turned out that there was a secret institution-internal deadline for proposal submission that no one told me about, and I found out two days *after* it passed. I was also away, traveling at the time. But we all got our asses into gear and worked hard and get an extra-special extension from the office of sponsored research, and eventually made it work (and I got the grant!). But yeah, I shouldn't have trusted other people to lead me through the process, that caused a whole lot of stress and almost led to failure. 

First, your field might be very different, but in our field the rankings are pretty accurate. I would use the NCA site to determine which schools have programs with research interests that match your own. For me, I looked at all of the health comm/interpersonal programs. I looked at the faculty lists to see which schools had full professors whose names I recognized, a clear indicator of prestige. However, this is not an indicator of research output. You also would like to be in a place where the younger faculty (the assistant and associate professors, those who are seeking tenure or a full professorship) also have recognizable names, who are actively publishing, which gives you the opportunity to get involved. In our field, NYU is in a desirable location, they have a VERY niche program with very little in-field name recognition (in my opinion). UConn (for interpersonal/health) and Pitt (rhetoric) have exceptional programs. The school name is not so much what matters here, but the department/faculty prestige certainly does. 
This is incredibly untrue. Please do not listen to this! You are severely ill informed if you think that people graduating from better top tier schools are ill equipped, on the whole. Top tier schools have better funding, thus they attract top talent. They typically offer more research funding, and faculty who are top names, the most respected in their field, are the ones who are teaching your classes. You are learning from the best. I am not sure what you mean by "merely" holding a master's. A master's degree is not easy, and holding one does not make you "merely" anything in my opinion, you should value and respect that degree as a fellow academic.
All of you should be looking at where students get placed after graduating. That will tell you whether a program is good or not. Ask for their recent graduate placements. Ask about what the school will do for you if the job market sucks (like do they offer a post doc position for a year or two after graduating). Ask about how long your funding lasts (is it a year to year thing, a 4 year commitment but no more, or 5+ years of funding). Ask about student research and look at the awards won by current students in the last year. This will tell you about the program prestige. Yes, these things do matter. Yes, you should certainly care about them.
It depends on what subsection of the field you are in. The top 5% is different for media studies than it is for critical/cultural studies, for rhetoric, for health comm, for interpersonal. on my side of the field there are clusters of school rankings. Maybe the top schools are UCSB, Penn State, Iowa, Purdue, UIUC, Northwestern, UT-Austin. The tiers kind of muddle from there. The older rankings are not inaccurate, but faculty move around, so I would look at who is at each school right now to make your own prestige determination because it is so subfield specific.
This is sort of true. It is not entirely your research interests that matter, but the research you have done that matters. If your research interests don't match your research output, that is potentially problematic. Your GPA literally does not matter at all in graduate school. Do not fail classes, but straight A's do not matter almost at all. Focus your energy on your research. Again, I cannot stress this enough, you want to go to a place where quality research happens, where the research is respected, so that you will be taught how to do things in a way that will be respected in the field. That typically happens at better ranked schools (which is why they are better ranked). 

Nothing IronicStatement said is horribly inaccurate, but let me at least provide a slightly different take so you can figure your own way depending on your priorities.
1) If you look through enough alumni, recent grad, and faculty profiles, the general trend is that in academia you place downward post-PhD in terms of institutional/program prestige. Do you want to stay in academia? Do you want to work at an R1 or is non-R1 fine with you? If you want to go R1, you should certainly keep this in mind. The downward pattern isn't just an observation on my part, I've discussed it with numerous faculty who say that it's inevitably how the market works out given applicant-opening ratios and academia reputational dynamics. I have had faculty mentors bluntly tell me that if it came down to two candidates of equal profile, one from Prestigious Private U University High Rank Program vs Big 10 U High Rank Program, they would go for the former, little doubt about it. I'm not saying any of this is right or wrong, I'm just making you aware it is a thing.
2) The one bit I straight up disagree with is that higher ranking schools pay tend to pay less. If anything, the higher ranked programs tend to have more resources and will be able to/often do compete with each other, matching funding packages if they want you, and pay better on the whole. For example, I hear Northwestern recently raised their funding package to $29k to compete with Penn Annenberg. Furthermore, some of the wealthier programs have the benefit of being able to provide annual personal research/travel purses as opposed to many programs where trying to get the school to fund anything is a struggle. That can mean the difference between being continuously tied to a faculty grant - which is great if you're really 100% interested in that work but can be hell if not - versus being able to dabble in some more specifically personal stuff.
People are certainly right when they say it's your CV and list of pubs that matter most once you have your PhD. Productive people have come out of programs of all different prestige levels, but prestige and the resources that often come with it can mean that it's that much easier to be productive when you don't have to worry about certain things.
That's all a bunch of more general advice, though. Sounds like you've found a program and fit that really excite you, you should apply to it. I personally don't think USF is any worse than GMU or UK.
 
 
 

The difference between top 10 and top 5 to me is so small as to be irrelevant, especially when one has "very very good research fit" and the other has "decent" research fit.  They're both prestigious programs.

I like TakeruK's advice.  I have found that my actual research interests and projects have shifted a bit since I began school, and have also found that I am intrigued by a lot of different kinds of projects.  If I were applying over, I wouldn't be so concerned about the exact projects as I would be about 1) the skills I could learn and 2) the people I would be working with.  I am also definitely not completely 100% in love with my PhD dissertation work, but I like it well enough to finish it, and I think it's interesting.

Honestly, it's like work.  I don't know too many people who are completely, 100% in love with their jobs. But they like them well enough to work at them for 50-60 hours a week.  That's what you need.

I also agree that this difference in prestige is very small and probably not going to matter. At the same time, the difference between "decent" and "excellent" research fit might not be that big either. In terms of thinking about post-PhD career plans options, here are some of my thoughts. I am not in your field and know pretty much nothing about it though, so I'll just offer thoughts and let you decide what is actually relevant.
 
1. What do you mean by "research fit" precisely? Do you mean that you get along well with the faculty and that the faculty there do exactly what you want to work on? Or do you mean that the program has a very strong research program and the right resources to help you achieve your goals. In my opinion, one of the things you can be flexible about is the exact topic of research. So, to me, I never looked for graduate schools based on the exact topic I wanted my PhD thesis to be on. Instead, I made a list of certain goals/skills/experiences I wanted to achieve during my PhD and my choice of "fit" is the place that will let me enable these goals. For example, I wanted to learn how to use telescopes and become an observational astronomer. This meant that my "topic" fit can be anything that is observational in the department, whether it's asteroids in our Solar Systems or planets in other solar systems. 
 
So, in my opinion, I don't usually think of "fit" as "I want to study [topic X]" but rather "I want to become good at [skill X]".
 
2. Related to the above, what about the resources available to you at each of these programs? Let's say that I did want to study topic X, subtopic Y using telescope observations. However, sometimes a school with the best research fit (many experts on topic X, subtopic Y) might have fewer resources available to you than a school with only a decent research fit (some experts on topic X, but they mostly work on subtopic Z). You will be much more likely to succeed when you have the resources available to you. Resources can be things like funding to attend conferences, funding to "buy you out" of other commitments like TAships (unless developing a strong teaching background is your PhD goal, then you might want the opposite of this!), equipment to do experiments, good location/big city where a lot of other academics will visit and give seminars, etc. 
 
In my opinion, if I am indeed a badass scientist, I would be better off where I have the most resources to fulfill my maximum badass potential.
 
3. I also don't think PhD students need to be completely 100% in love with their PhD thesis/work. You definitely need to not hate it and be miserable, but really, you might only need to tolerate it. I think it's hard to stay as freshly motivated and in love with a topic after 4-5 years. And, for most that are entering grad school, we probably have 2-4 years max of research experience in the field. Our research careers (if we go that route) will probably be 40+ years long. Even after grad school, we would have only completed a tiny fraction of our total research career. So, I think this means two things. First, how can we really really know what we actually like to research--our exposure to our field is pretty small. Second, it's not like what we do in grad school is going to dictate the rest of our research careers. Most professors I know change paths after grad school. Many postdocs I work with do not work on the same topics as they did in their PhDs just a few years ago. The field is changing all the time, so it makes sense for our interests and research goals to change too.
 
4. So, also related to the above, if you are mainly concerned about post-PhD career plans, instead of worrying about research fit with your choice of topic, I'd consider more about the program's research fit with what kind of work you want to do later on. For people in my field, I'd advise them to work on topics that will be likely to get grants/jobs in a few years. One way to think about this is to think about what space missions are scheduled to arrive at their destinations at the time of graduation. At this point, there will be a ton of data, and lots of people looking for scientists who know how to interpret it and analyse it etc. For other fields, I would suggest a similar approach for whatever big projects that exist there. 
 
Also, if your eventual career goals are not research based, then consider that in your decision too. For example, there are some schools in my field that are very research heavy and has very little emphasis on teaching. Grad students might only work as a TA for a couple of semesters in their whole degree. This is not going to be an ideal place for someone whose career goal is to work in a primarily teaching position. 
 
5. Finally, one thing I also did consider is prestige of the school outside of your field in case you are interested in working outside of your field. There are some schools in my field that are not very big names to public as academic powerhouses but they are very well known to be the best within the field. But if you are looking for a job in industry or something outside of academia, it would help more to have the shiny school brand name even though the program might not be as good as the one at the less shiny brand name (of course, usually the best program in the field will make the other 4 points here better, so I would say this is one of the least important points). Also, if you are planning to work outside of academia in a certain geographical area (e.g. not the US) then perhaps the bigger name schools will have more international recognition. 
 
Hope these were some useful thoughts to think about and help you

Veryinteresting topic and enlightening comments. Thank you all for your in-depth look at this!
I think part of the problem is not just the employment prospects of fresh psychology Ph.Ds, but more so the "return on investment". As the data shown here suggests, our future salaries are hardly high enough to support a family with (assuming this is the family's primary salary), and we should ask ourselves wether it's worth it to work 5+ years for $15 an hour (for a $30K stipend) just to secure a $61K per year job, let a lone if even that salary isn't secured due to possible low job security. I don't have a clear answer for myself, but one future possible career track I'm looking at is policy planning where at least the job security is a bit higher than in adjunct/ non tenure-track positions in academia.

TRAITOR!!! Academia is the ONLY noble route. Only people who are privileged enough to afford college are worthy of your effort and talents.

...Kidding, of course!!!!

Some brief concluding thoughts as I check out of this year's admission cycle. I found this site very useful throughout the application process. I trawled it when I was a younger undergrad interested in grad school, and it was a good relief valve during the application season. Not many of my friends and peers apply to graduate school, not least sociology, so it was great to have the forum. My experience is anecdotal of course, but I hope people glean something from it.
I applied to 14 schools in this cycle, and I was accepted to 5. All of them were ranked in the top 20. While I wasn't admitted to some of my top choice programs (namely, Harvard and Berkeley), I do have great options available. I'm writing this in the wake of a few rejections, so there may be a strain of ambivalence to my words, but I know that in more sober moments I am very thankful and humbled to have the options I do.
I have a reasonably strong application profile. Without identifying myself, I come from a top 10 liberal arts college. I'm currently a senior. My GPA is within the summa/magna cum lauda range. My GRE scores (verbal/quant/writing) are above the 90th percentile. I have worked as a research assistant, and have dabbled in an independent summer research. 
I applied only to top ranked programs that were strong in what I was interested in (culture/theory/networks). I thought I made a strong case for my admission in each case, but as you can see, I was far from uniformly successful. 
I'm passing on tips and advice that I have accumulated from all over.
Make sure your file is as strong as it can reasonably be. Low test scores can entirely break through application (though high ones don't necessarily make it). Prestige and status of your undergraduate institution matters. There might be very little you can do to change and affect this, but it is wise to cognizant of its effects on your application, and to try to accommodate for this as best as you can. Network early and often with your letter writers. Make sure they know who you are, and how/why you're dedicated to a career in academia. Apply widely! You cannot apply to just a select few and expect to get in, unless you're a bona fide star (and perhaps, even if). I imagine my application profile does not look too dissimilar to that of the modal "good" applicant: in which case you might expect a similar result from mine. Start early! Start preparing your writing sample and personal statements by June, if you can. I started in September or so, and I wish I had started earlier.

Oh my gosh. This is so similar to my situation. My friends have been largely supportive, but that's mostly because I didn't really have friends until grad school (and those two that stuck around from before have always been there, have graduate degrees as well, and are always supportive and understanding of what I want to do). That's beside the point, though. 
My family has known since I first decided (nearly five years ago now) that I wanted to get a PhD, yet, when app time rolled around, I got three distinct talkings to from my mother. Keep in mind that I've been married and out of the house for nearly five years. The first one came five days before my lit subject, in which she asked me if I was doing this "for me, or to impress other people." Lol, like anyone would just put themselves through the wringer that is a PhD program just for someone else. The next one was, I don't think coincidentally, a couple of days before I retook my GRE general, and I was asked what was wrong with taking a few years off, having kids, then going to the school 1.5 hours away part-time "like so many people do" (really? Who that you know, mom?). There have been guilt trips of both the child-bearing(my partner is a few years older than me, so family planning is always on the mind for both of us, and her too, apparently) and "if you move away, you'll kill your family" variety. I've also been asked what's so bad about being an adjunct (what I'm doing now). I've explained that even though I'm working 40+ hours per week, I get paid less than $5/hr and don't get any benefits and that the courses I teach now could just vanish next semester, but I'm not sure she believes me. The whole thing has gotten worse since I started getting accepted to programs and the reality of what's happening is setting in. 
The major problem is that my BA was always encouraged but seen as a "backup plan" in case I, as a future stay at home mom, would need a degree to "fall back on" in a job search. Neither of my parents have degrees, and neither did their parents - I'm the first. So when I broke the mold and went for the MA, she passed it off as a hobby, I think. She doesn't understand that this is a job, this is a path to a job, and hopefully will lead to a stable future for my family (if all things pan out and I actually get tenured). It's more than just a passion for me, but for her, it is just a whim, a thing I'm using to defer having kids (I'm 23 for pete's sake), to impress other people. 
I don't really have an answer for how to deal with this, beyond just trying to explain in plain language what I'm doing in the best way I can. And I'm just going to have to figure out a way to deal with the inevitable emotional consequences of doing something that deviates from her plan for my life. Therapy is helping, but I'm not looking forward to dropping the news that I'm likely headed to California in 6 months.
 

@orphic_mel528, I'm out of reputation, but I wanted to say how sorry I am that someone you've known for so long would take that kind of tact. So often it seems to me that people on the outside of academic work have a set of responses, as though they're reading directly from a script, when talking about the academy, no matter the circumstances. It's rather bizarre, to me, that there is such a widespread assumption that academic work isn't or can't be real work, even as more and more people go to college and press their own children likewise to go to college, something that would be impossible were it not for those willing to get PhDs. The current higher educational system relies on people getting PhDs, and yet somehow it is shameful to do so? It's something I certainly don't understand.
 
On the other hand, my father--a high school dropout who's worked with his hands his entire life (although he also does IT work sans degree)--remains completely baffled that he doesn't have to come up with money to put me through a PhD program. I've tried explaining several times that I only really applied to programs that would waive tuition and give me a stipend, but he remains worried about the debt he believes I will certainly accrue. People's assumptions re: academia are really strange.

Just curious: What have the reactions been from family/friends/whoever regarding your PhD plans?
About an hour ago, I told a friend I was starting my PhD this fall, and he made a wisecrack: "Putting off non-academia and a real job for a few more years? Good idea."
First off, I was shocked he would say this, even jokingly. He's known me since I was 15, therefore he knows I've been working since I was 15. I worked full-time through the entirety of my undergraduate and graduate education. I had three jobs during the latter, actually: one full-time and two part-time. I haven't been unemployed more than a month in my adult life. I had a career in a different field for a decade. So it was super bizarre and insulting to think about the possibility that he was making some kind of crack about my work ethic. 
Second: Why is it that no one seems to understand that most people are working while doing their PhDs? Teaching undergraduates isn't considered a job, orrrrr? Because that's what I'm doing now, and I get a paycheck...that's what having a job is, right? Or am I confused?
A close family member reacted to my plans as follows:
"Why would you want to do that? Who's going to pay for that?"
After I explained why I want to do that, I also explained that only a small number of applicants are accepted and are given jobs/stipends to pay for their studies.
"Why would they do that for people who want to read books?"
http://gph.is/1sCcMr3
 

This is a bit of a false binary I'm making here, but you're smart to be thinking about what might be called the tangible and intangible costs and benefits of your options. Like several others who've responded, I'm dismayed (but not entirely surprised) to hear that some academics have actively discouraged taking your "personal life" (i.e., relationship, distance from loved ones) into account when making your decision on where to attend. And while it's true that some academics (many, in fact) can and do spend extended periods of time away from their partners -- while in school or afterward while working -- this isn't at all a "one size fits all" situation. Not all of us are wired for what worked for Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, for example, and it's worth repeating that there's no need for us to be either. (Aside: I wonder, too, about the gendered and engendering dynamics of this kind of advice in terms of the gender(s) of the person who advocates for what kind of scenario and how tailored said advice is to the prospective graduate student in question depending on their gender(s).) But as many already attending programs have indicated and/or who've been the partner for someone attending a program near and/or far, our academic and scholarly lives are hopelessly, complicatedly, and beautifully entangled. And, finally, indivisible. This is just my two cents. 
On the "academic" side of the equation: I agree that the programs you describe appear to be equal "on paper," though each offers unique opportunities not necessarily matched by the other. Being able to get a certificate in African Studies is certainly a selling point. Yet even taking into account the fact that your research interests likely will broaden and deepen into other areas falling under the umbrella of Postcolonial Studies once you begin coursework, reading for field/comprehensive exams, if African literature figures prominently in your dissertation (one or more chapters, I mean), that expertise will speak for itself in your scholarship in addition to any conference papers, presentations, articles, etc. The other school with a larger contingent of faculty working within Postcolonial Studies in a variety of ways is an equally valid selling point because, as you point out too, broadening the scope of your inquiry would be a good thing.
The major unknown in this situation, of course -- the question of "fit" -- will be answered when you visit both schools. Part of that involves the atmosphere of the department: the engagement and overall morale of your peers in and outside of your fields (are they happy, do they feel supported by faculty, do they support each other, does competitiveness or pettiness run riot) and the engagement and morale of the faculty (are they invested in working with, training, and supporting their students; are they available; are any in your area getting ready to go on sabbatical or fellowships to other institutions, etc; how do the faculty in and adjacent to your fields get along with each other). Graduate students can and hopefully will speak to rivalries and/or friction between faculty and/or amongst themselves. Sometimes all-star scholars are wonderfully invested and engaged in fostering graduate students working within their fields, but this is by no means always the case. You, better than anyone, know what your learning style is and how you will flourish best. And, of course, there's the magical calculus of who you'll respond to best. It might be at the school with the larger group of Postcolonial scholars -- who knows? -- and it might be at the Midwestern school.
Other academic tangibles: I'd agree that, theoretically, interdisciplinary coursework between departments relevant to your interests is hopefully possible; that's definitely something to ask about. Other important things to ask about on visits and to research include: what's the average time to degree for students within this department and/or what's the attrition rate? And, of course, job placement: where are the graduates getting jobs: what kinds of tenure-track jobs vis-à-vis the kinds to which you aspire (R1, SLAC, public versus private) do graduates get in and out of their fields, how many are lecturers or postdocs or adjuncting, how many move into alt-ac careers? Prestige and academic pedigree undeniably play a part in this, of course, but the numbers of each institution will also speak for themselves, and be prepared to ask for the hard data. Other things that might be relevant: how much departmental and university-wide support is there for attending conferences nationally and/or internationally; are there research fellowships you can apply for if you need to do archival work in the US or abroad, or to pick up another language for research?
Now, on the intangible side, which is to say the "personal" side: as you point out, how far "fully funded" goes is incredibly important. I consider this here -- and not with the academics -- because, for me at least, financial solvency has a direct impact on quality of life and state of mind. The cost of living where each of these schools are located is most definitely something to consider. You know your financial situation best. But I think you're smart to acknowledge that the higher stipend of the NYC program doesn't necessarily translate into more money in your pocket, though perhaps staying in NJ would alleviate that somewhat. Another enormous factor that I never considered when I was preparing to enter my program -- and that I learned the hard way -- involves how many months of the year you're funded. Does your funding extend through the summer months and, further, do you have guaranteed funding during every summer or, alternatively, some summers? If your funding is contingent on you serving as a TA or as the instructor of record in your own classroom, does the university guarantee such positions during the summer? (If they don't, it's worth asking how they select who *does* get those positions.) If teaching isn't guaranteed, are there other opportunities available to help you make ends meet as a research assistant, working in a writing center, etc? And, perhaps most importantly, if you're paid on a monthly basis and if your fellowship actually covers 9 months out of the year more than a full 12, when are the gap months when you cannot rely on your funding to pay your bills. In my program, for example, those gap months run from June all the way through the end of September -- unless you're TA'ing or teaching during the summer session and/or otherwise employed in another capacity over the summer months. If I am not working during the summer session, for example, I don't receive a paycheck from the university until October 1st -- and must figure out how to make ends meet from the final paycheck received on June 1st all the way until October 1st.
As far as the relational: I agree with what others have said re: trusting yourself to know what kind of situation will set you up for success. Like you, my partner and I have been in a long-distance relationship since I've been in my program and live roughly two hours away from each other (in Texas time, that's basically nothing as far as driving goes, but it's distance nonetheless). When I was applying to programs -- which were scattered all over the country -- we were likewise facing the possibility that, depending on where I did and didn't get accepted, the best opportunity for me might be in another part of the country. We were prepared for this but, like you, were hoping it might not turn out that way. I should say, too, that I did go across the country for my undergraduate degree (in North Carolina; I'm originally from Texas). And while it was a wonderful experience, it was also damn hard in ways I couldn't have imagined until I was actually doing it. I was prepared to do it again if need be, but I had no illusions about how much more vigilant I would be regarding self-care and support systems if and when I did find myself in a completely new place, without any of my friends or family, by myself. All of this is to say that you're wise to take into account the benefits of being closer to your partner as opposed to farther away. Were I in your situation without having visited the schools in question, I would definitely be leaning hard toward the school that's closer (in NYC) because I, for one, find moving incredibly stressful. And, yes, it is also expensive (it's worth asking if the university in the Midwest offers any way to defray the costs of moving). The slog of commuting, on the other hand -- whether by bus, train, or driving yourself -- can be similarly draining emotionally and financially. It's worth asking the students at NYC how many of them commute (and from where), how they do it, and how hellish (or not) their schedules are (I mean, for example, having to wake up at 4 or 5am in order to be on campus for a class that meets in the morning; or, alternatively, if all the graduate classes are at night, realizing that you may be getting home very, very late). I live outside of Austin and drive 25 miles to an outlying city transit center and then ride a commuter bus into Austin to get to campus on the days I have class and/or teach. In total, it takes between 1.5 to 2 hours to/from campus, and I use that time to get as much reading done as possible. This semester, I'm doing that two days a week -- which is an absolute godsend, although I get up at 5am on those days and don't get home until between 4-6pm -- but by the time I get home, I am done with thinking for the day. Because I'm all but out of coursework and am writing my dissertation now, I use the days I'm not on campus to write and/or take care of any household things that need doing, but the thought of having to take a night class (6pm-9pm), commute 1.5-2 hours home, and then potentially get up at 5-6am to teach a morning class is a prospect I dread having to face (but very well might). As I've written everyone's ears off, I'll quit while I'm ahead. But it's good that you're thinking about this from as many angles as possible, and I hope that visiting each campus will answer a lot of the questions you have!       
 

Just from what you've listed here it seems that you may have more opportunities to grow academically and personally at school A. It seems that the main issue is the move and being away from your support system, so you would just have to be very intential about building a new one. 

One additional thing: I don't want to be too gloomy here. Pursuing a Phd might be great for you. Some of you will end up being professors. Most of you won't. Many of you will end up having PhD's. That's pretty cool.

Not everyone has good advisors or parents who are aware of life in academia in general. If I didn't have good advisors, I wouldn't have the same knowledge I have about it. For 1st generation college students, the info can be lacking. 

Thanks for posting this, @BigTenPoliSci, and best of luck to you on the market.
I think I'm just confused about how applicants could foster these kinds of misconceptions for so long. All of my advisors warned me about job prospects, as did my academic parents, and each day brings a new PSR thread about how dismal the market looks. I think that one big problem is that academics view anything besides TT placement as failure, and a common thing that I've heard is that getting a TT position is the only way to make up for the opportunity costs of getting a PhD. To me, that's such a strange way of thinking about it; if one's only desire is to make money then why would they even consider this career? You could probably make as much as an assistant professor straight out of undergrad in certain sectors. I would much rather take my chances on a rough academic job market than sit in an office throughout my 20s, making good money but always regretting my decision not to try. Worst-case scenario, I start climbing the corporate ladder significantly later than my peers and never become a millionaire (oh, the horror).

I will be finishing my dissertation in the near future and moving on to the next phase of my life and career. Like most grad students, I stopped visiting this site once I started and the whirlwind of grad school kicked in. I recently had a conversation with a cohort-mate about the correct and incorrect impressions we had when we applied for grad school. That conversation made me think of this site, so I have visited again a few times lately.

The biggest misconception I had was about how program rank translated into job prospects. I thought that getting a PhD from Harvard, Michigan, or Stanford was what I needed if I wanted to end up at a big time R1. I didn’t get into a top 5, but that’s fine. i never wanted one of those high-pressure jobs at a top school anyway. I am delighted with a job at a 3-2 directional or a 3-3 regional. Maybe a 4-4 liberal arts school will be fun too, if it turns out that I like teaching and the location is good. I felt like my expectations were reasonable.

That’s not how it works.

The tenure-track (TT) jobs at the big time R1’s rarely come available, and when they do come up they go to a tiny handful (e.g., 3 or 4) market stars from the top 5. The market for ALL of the rest of the TT jobs (yes, that includes the undesirable locations and the 3-3 directional schools) is fought over by assistant professors looking to make moves and the rest of the ABD’s out of the top 10.

Those of us in the 15-25 range are looking for any TT job at all, not ones we like (e.g., the Arkansas Tech opening in American politics last year got well over 100 applications). Most of us take a visiting assistant professor (VAP) or postdoc jobs somewhere for one year, and often a second one. After that some of us get a TT job at an urban commuter school or remote directional. The rest? We lose track of them. Based on Facebook and word of mouth it seems that they become homemakers, yoga instructors, high school teachers, or wherever else life takes them.

 After six years my cohort of 20 has 12 people left. 1 has a TT job offer. 6 of us are waiting to hear on some VAP / postdoc jobs and waiting on more to post in the spring portion of the job market cycle. The rest need more time to finish.

 
If you are an applicant reading this, you are probably thinking that you’ll do fine. You’re really good at school. Your professors really like you.
The hard part of convincing a person not to go to graduate school is that person is told all the time that s/he is one of the best from their school. S/he feels special. I get it. I felt the same way. But once you are here you realize that we were all special. And almost none of us will end up being professors.

One of my recommenders wrote to me after I notified her about my most recent rejection: "I'm sorry to hear that, XXXXXXX, but keep hope alive! Excellent candidates are supposed to receive rejections in this system. Remember your value."

I don't know what  is talking about. Those are very good stats. You would certainly get into respectable programs. However, philosophy majors have the highest verbal scores, so your 163, though very good, would probably prevent you from getting into the top 10-20 programs. Your high quantitative score may be enough to squeak you into to a top 20 university, however. Here is Duke's admission statistics for the last three years, which is a great program in philosophy. https://gradschool.duke.edu/about/statistics/philosophy-phd-admissions-and-enrollment-statistics. While you couldn't hold your breath for Duke, you could probably get into programs like UC Davis without much doubt. That is, of course, with a strong SOP and LOR's.