in praxis

On Rank, I would consider the relative position of people working in your subfield at the institution under consideration, not the department's rank overall. Some departments have incredibly strong faculty in one field (IR, CP, American, Theory etc) but not in others.
On Academic Fit, I would consider whether your epistemological outlook is aligned with potential PIs. Substantive topics aside, are people doing the kind of research you want to be doing (natural experiments, ethnography etc). Will advisors allow you to do the work you want to do, the way you want to do it or will they push you to become more like them (this you can get a good sense of from talking to them about your work, but also current graduate students). 
On Advising, I think you covered the bases. I would also consider whether your potential PI has an advising style that suits you. Some people are very hands off, and that doesn't work for everyone but this fits with engagement. It's worth it to ask current and previous students what their meeting schedule looked like, and whether they felt their advisors read the papers they send and offer useful feedback. You don't need a committee of three people who will read everything with a fine toothed comb, but it helps to have one. Also, ask yourself if your main advisor left, would you still want to go to that school. Faculty move a lot, and most are not in a position to bring students with them or continue chairing committees if they leave and you can't follow them. I know too many people to count who have lost their primary advisor to a move, and then felt stuck committee wise without their main mentor. This is somewhat related to the idea of not choosing a program to work with one specific person.
On the Cohort dynamic - ask about office space. Do places have it for graduate students; do you have to compete for it; is it a positive or negative work environment? This seems pedantic, but it can mean a lot for positive social and academic environments. It changed my grad school experience drastically when we got access to a building where all graduate students have dedicated offices (if they aren't working out of specific centres). I have two potential co-authored papers I doubt I would have in the mix if I wasn't working in such an environment. Your immediate cohort will only matter for the one to two years you are doing a lot of coursework, so it's worth it to consider the general climate amongst graduate students, and whether people are hostile or constructive in feedback and collaborative opportunities.
On money: I would add a few other points of consideration.
What is the cost of living in immediate area? Is rent so expensive it takes up your entire stipend? Will you need to commute to make ends meet if you can't get on campus housing? Is commuting easy (reliable transit, 15 min drive with no traffic) or difficult (no transit, heavy traffic/long drive)?  Is your stipend the same as everyone else? I.e. do students compete for better funding packages. This is surprisingly true for a number of programs, and it can generate hostility in cohorts if people are fighting for money. Is there accessible funding for sixth years? Do you have it guaranteed or is it competitive? Is there accessible funding for fieldwork or research protocols? I.e. how easy is it to ask for 5000 to run a survey or spend a month in an archive? Are those internal departmental options, NSF grants, research centres?  For RA work, what is the typical wage? Are RA/TA obligations built into your stipend or are they an addition to your stipend (i.e. if you TA for a semester, do you earn additional wages on top of your stipend or not - this varies a ton!) Are you responsible for any annual fees or health insurance, or are these included in your funding package? On location, I would also ask if it's a place you can see yourself living for at least 3 years, if not the entire duration of your program. Can you lead the life you want in the area the school is, with what kinds of housing is available to you etc? This is important for pet owners, as well as people looking to settle down or find a long term relationship in grad school. It's also true for people moving with partners or children. If the immediate location doesn't work, but a neighbouring city does, consider whether the commute is something you can handle (and afford). 
On partner groups, I would also consider whether centres regularly bring in post-docs or visiting professors. It's a great opportunity to collaborate with early career scholars, and bring in additional expertise. Minor thing, really, but it adds to the climate of collaboration and opportunities. Also consider whether there are research and social groups that can support you as well. I've gotten a lot out of a women and politics group we have in our department as it has fostered connections between female graduate students and female faculty I wouldn't normally interact with. Likewise for first generation scholars, or visible minorities, some departments have a lot of great opportunities to network with peers that can make the PhD process more manageable.
 
A lot of people told me that such questions weren't important. A grad student at a visit laughed when I asked about offices and said that surely I wouldn't pick a place based on whether I would have an office or not. Sure, my decision wouldn't hinge on that one factor but it's a question meant to probe the underlying social dynamics of a department that may not be immediately visible during a visit weekend. There is plenty to consider of course. Hope this helps.

In at Stanford, notified by email Friday night March 22

Just got my final rejection from SAIS. 0a/8r... brutal af. All the best to all those who got through this cycle.... and all the best to those who didn’t.

For McGill applicants: faculty members met today to make final M.A. admissions decisions, so you should hear quite soon.

Future applicants, if you read this early enough to reconsider which schools you're applying to, I hope you may consider my advice. 
Your credentials and achievements are no guarantee of admission. That's been my big takeaway from this cycle. If I could do it all over again, I'd have applied to more MA programs (ones with a good record of placement in a PhD program and with high likelihood of good funding). A lot of people go into a PhD program from MA--there's nothing wrong with that! Just try to avoid paying too much for it. 
I thought (naively now, I know) that I was good enough to get into PhD programs. I assessed my financial situation, got a partial scholarship to cover application fees, and got a waiver for 1 and paid around $550 - $600 for 10 schools after the scholarship. (Side note--You'll see a lot of people here do more than 10, but please don't go broke doing this. Instead, be honest with yourself and apply to schools that are a good fit for you. Not schools that have a great reputation--don't apply solely on the reputation. If your AOI fits and they have a good reputation, awesome! But focus on fit above all else.) In my case, I decided to apply to 9 PhDs and 1 MA because I thought that is where my application money would be the most effective, and I thought my chances of getting into a PhD program were quite good. 
I'd been told by several professors at different schools that my Fulbright would be a major boost to getting me into grad school. Not quite a golden ticket, but almost. I had a 4.0, I was valedictorian of my graduating class, had a few published papers and presentations, spoke a second language. I'm waitlisted at two schools, waiting on an interview/preview weekend for a third, and accepted in an MA program. That's it. My point is not to brag about my accomplishments (they didn't get me much of anywhere, did they?) but rather to advise future applicants that nothing is guaranteed, no matter what anyone told you. This process is going to suck. There will be people who get into 5 top schools, but most of us don't have that kind of choice. And it's not your fault. It's not a judgment on your capacity as a philosopher or scholar at all. This is a highly competitive process, and sometimes things just don't work out--your POI is going to be leaving or is on sabbatical,  last year's cohort had too many people with your AOI, etc. So many things are outside your control, and the chances you'd know about them in advance are slim, depending on the circumstance.
But if you read this early enough, add those MA programs to your list! Assuming you are coming straight from undergrad, that is. They'll give you a leg up and a chance to come back with a stronger application next time. They're a nice fallback plan if the PhD apps don't work out.
Best of luck to everyone! 

HEREWITH I PRESENT MY WISDOM
 
Sizzling Tier of the Making-or-Breaking-of-Application-Glory-or-Doom: Writing Sample / Letters of Recommendation (quality + fame) 
Hot Tier of Great Importance: GPA (in philosophy) / Higher Education Pedigree (in philosophy; can be very convincingly argued that this belongs to the Sizzling Tier)
Lukewarm Tier of Afterthought: GRE / Statement of Purpose [both of these, if significantly awful, will wreck your chances; if very good, will not go very far towards securing anything on their own]
 

It has been my pleasure to edit/fix the spreadsheet for this cycle--and I'm already planning some tweaks for the future based on the feedback I've gotten over the past two years  

For next year's cycle, be on the lookout for a tab/spreadsheet (currently the "work in progress tab") that will have deadlines, application fees/fee waivers, info on GREs (needed or not), unofficial vs official transcript requirements, and the like for most of the universities that have been flagged for inclusion on the spreadsheet. 

An MA won't make you any less competitive. What it will do is give you a chance to get a feel for what graduate work in philosophy is like, and whether it's worth pursuing. And it'll give you a chance to apply more carefully next time, with better-developed interests. Also, it's very hard to switch PhD programs, and if you decide to leave partway through, there's no guarantee they'll give you an MA on the way out.
To my mind, it's better to maximize your chances at happiness and minimize your opportunities to second-guess your decisions, and given what you describe, it sounds to me like an MA is the way to achieve that. But if you're dead-certain about your intended AOS, and your prospective supervisors at the PhD programs are top-flight in that AOS, then that might change the calculus. So, e.g., if I were working in philosophy of biology and had an offer to work with Millikan at UConn, I'd take that (yes, I know she's emerita). But if your PhD programs and prospective advisors aren't fantasmic in your proposed area, or you're not wholly sold on that area, then it's a different story.
Frankly, I think everyone should do a Master's degree before starting a PhD. But that's just me, and I know it's not the norm in the US. 

I emailed to ask if I was off the waitlist at Florida State, and they had just voted to accept me even though no one had yet declined! Really nice of them! 

Yep, Princeton! *dies of excitement*

Received email acceptance from U of T! 

Accepted into McGill University!!!

So happy for you! 

Goddamn people are not happy on the results page about how this Michigan rejection went down. This process is an inhuman nightmare as a standard, but Michigan has apparently gone above and beyond the call of duty here to really piss some people off. 
 

I am speaking to my experience as someone who moved from politics and philosophy as an undergrad to a theory Ph.D. program, and from what is a fairly common perspective in academia. There are, of course, Phil programs that focus in social and political philosophy. I don't know where you attended undergrad, but it is also true that political philosophy and applied ethics are more widely taught in undergraduate classes than as the focus of graduate programs. 

I think an excellent exercise is to examine the types of projects and papers that are being produced in political philosophy programs versus political theory as a discipline. Check out the recent conference programs, and ask which type of work you would rather do. 

I think my comment about the marginalization of political philosophy within the discipline is adequately supported by reading mainstream philosophy journals and conference proceedings. But YMMV. 

Not OP, but from my experience this is also true. I'm a transplant to political science out of philosophy because of the paucity of research and opportunities for political philosophers in philosophy departments proper. I've had plenty of contact with the philosophy department both at my undergrad university and others close by, and spent a fair bit of time researching philosophy PhDs before making the switch to political science, and political philosophy 100% fell by the wayside. I've found a few exceptions, though: (1) if the department is more continental you're more likely to have a range of political philosophy, and (2) you'll probably at least get social contract and Rawls in the analytic departments I've encountered. It's also a lot easier to run a couple political philosophy courses for undergrads (everyone can teach Rawls) than it is to develop a robust political philosophy faculty who consistently does great research.
But certainly since the vast majority of American schools skew analytic in their philosophy departments, you'd be hard up doing your PhD in philosophy on political issues. Obviously this is department-dependent (e.g. if you're at Chicago hanging out with Nussbaum and Pippin you're obviously have a lot of options), but places like Chicago seemed to be an exception when I was looking prior to my MA.
 

Just got that same email.  I'm local to Duquesne and I met with some professors before applying, so I knew the odds going in, but yeah, it really did reemphasize the difference in the numbers between grad applications and undergrad applications.  When there are that few slots going around, I don't think you can call any application "safe." 

I would also like to add-- if you know you're not going to attend an institution, please don't wait until April 15th to tell the department that you are going elsewhere. This also goes for waitlists--if you can take yourself off of them the department can go to the next person if a spot opens up and not wait to hear back from you first!
I know this may seem (very) obvious, but I've had a few previous colleagues wait until the 15th deadline to tell all/most of the schools they would be going elsewhere including the ones that they had already ruled out as live possibilities. Sometimes folks will have very little time when they receive a last minute offer to decide on whether or not to say yes or no and to figure out how it compares to any other offers they already have. The earlier the waitlists get moving, the better off everyone is (and sometimes previously rejected folks can receive an offer--e.g. UVA last year).

Kantattheairport, you are so kind. All I have seen of you on this forum is generosity and compassion, and it sincerely warms my heart to see the unreleting optimism and support you have provided for everyone.
I feel incredibly greatful for the advice you’ve just given me. I was feeling pretty down in the dumps, but you’ve changed my spirits all for the better, I cannot express that enough. Thank you. I hope you get into a wonderful program, you really do deserve it! 

Would have been nice to know this ahead of time so I could apply to a program that didn't prioritize "gender diversity" even more than programs already do. Stay classy, Irvine.

1. Whether you're talking about your overall GPA or your philosophy GPA makes a big difference!
2. As other people have said, it can hurt your chances, but also other parts of your application can bring you back up.
Sub-3.5 overall GPA, accepted last year at Tufts, waitlisted at GSU, MIT, NYU.
I think if a component of your application bothers you, the best thing to do is to have a talk with your letter-writers and ask them about your chances. Not only will they probably know better whether or not you're a good fit for grad schools, they can also note in their letters that X component of your application does not reflect your full abilities, and so on.

Fyi I'm just representing one (ranked) program but we generally don't look at grades until after we've holistically evaluated the person's writing sample, statement, letters, etc. Occasionally then when we look at grades and there is a big problem (e.g. nothing above a B+ in any philosophy course, a poor grade in logic or math for someone who wants to do formal work, a really really low overall GPA) someone just gets immediately counted out. But normally once we've looked at everything else unless there is a huge red flag in your grades you're already basically in the yes, no, or the maybe pile. That being said, without looking at grades at first, it is rare that someone with a GPA below, say, 3.3-3.4 (unless they were e.g. taking a lot of very hard math/science courses) ends up in the yes or maybe pile. But it does happen. A 3.7 would certainly not even raise an eyebrow in my department at all unless the philosophy grades were bad. Even then it is the sample and the letters that matter more. We also don't look at GREs though our university requires that we ask for them.

Rejected by Illinois Urbana-Champagne. It's an uphill battle with my 3.05 GPA. 

Washing the dishes has become therapeutic because I actually accomplish something ?