The Blog of Academic Philosophy Data and Analysis

2025

New Leadership at APDA

As of September 15th, APDA has three directors: Carolyn Dicey Jennings, Travis LaCroix, and Kino Zhao. This post provides a brief history of the project and an interview with the new directors and their vision for the project.

2023 Featured

2023 Survey Results: An Overview

This post provides a few more results from the 2023 survey (organized with the help of Neelum Maqsood). As background, the 2023 survey departed from previous APDA surveys in being offered on the Qualtrics platform rather than on our own website. For this reason, we had to adapt the structure

2024 Featured

2024 Data Collection Results: a focus on recent graduates

Over the spring and summer we updated the database using placement pages and other public sources of data (h/t Ricardo Rodriguez), inviting program representatives to edit their dashboards at the end of the summer. This effort led to 406 new graduates in the covered period (2013–2023), over 2/

2023

2023 Survey Results: Graduate Student Income

The 2023 APDA Survey included the following new questions for current graduate students of philosophy PhD programs: * How satisfied are you in your financial situation? [very unsatisfied, unsat- isfied, neutral, satisfied, very satisfied] * Please elaborate on your previous answer. * Including all sources (e.g. stipends, employment, gifts) what is your

2023

2023 Data Collection Results: Employment

As mentioned in the previous post, we have completed our data gathering for nearly 150 programs, with our new data dashboard capturing nearly 6,000 philosophy PhD graduates between 2013 and 2023. These graduates are largely in academic jobs: 40% have had permanent academic employment (2,379 of 5,998)

2023

The New Data Dashboard

Between February and August of this year the APDA project has been busy collecting and checking data on the employment status of recent graduates from nearly 150 philosophy PhD programs. Three people were especially key to this effort: Alisha Nesslage, now a graduate student at UC Irvine, Ricardo Rodriguez, a

2023 Featured

Philosophy Works

This past week philosophy faculty from across the UC system got together to discuss how best to support graduate students in their search for non-academic careers. While around 85% of current students and recent graduates prefer an academic career, job satisfaction is the same for non-academic and permanent academic jobs

2022

What happened to all the philosophy PhDs? (SED edition)

NSF's Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) has just released its 2021 data (h/t to Daily Nous). As noted at Daily Nous, the total number of philosophy PhD graduates reported for 2021 is 399, which is far fewer than previous years. The chart below has SED data from

2022

2022 Data Collection Results

Since January we have been collecting data on over 200 PhD programs. The sortable table published to the home page today includes ten years of data for around 140 programs, nearly 50 of which have so far been able to verify our data. Analysis of that data is below, but

News

New Name and Icons

At 10 years old, APDA is ready for a sprucing up. The Board of Advisors met two weeks ago and decided to change the name of the project from Academic Placement Data and Analysis to Academic Philosophy Data and Analysis. Along with this name change I decided to create new

PGR

We had hoped for better; What’s next?

By Carolyn Dicey Jennings and Berit Brogaard In 2014, following the September Statement [https://sites.google.com/site/septemberstatement/], in which “six hundred twenty-four philosophers [signed] a pledge not to provide volunteer work for the Philosophical Gourmet Report under the control of Brian Leiter,” Brian Leiter posted the following [https:

2021 Top Programs

Bottom Quartile of Philosophy PhD Programs Ranked by Average Student Rating with Placement Rate and Student Comments

In the last three weeks I have posted some information about philosophy PhD programs, ranked by average student rating (you can see the other three posts here: https://academic-placement-data-and-analysis.ghost.io/tag/2021-top-programs/). This week I am covering the bottom quartile. One thing to note about the bottom quartile is

2021 Top Programs

Third Quartile of Philosophy PhD Programs Ranked by Average Student Rating with Placement Rate and Student Comments

The last two weeks I have posted information about the top quartile [https://academic-placement-data-and-analysis.ghost.io/topquartilephilosophyphdprograms/] and second quartile [https://academic-placement-data-and-analysis.ghost.io/secondquartilephilosophyphdprograms/] of philosophy PhD programs according to average student rating. This week I am covering the third quartile. What is the difference between these quartiles? While

2021 Top Programs

Second Quartile of Philosophy PhD Programs Ranked by Average Student Rating with Placement Rate and Student Comments

Last week I posted information about the top quartile [https://academic-placement-data-and-analysis.ghost.io/topquartilephilosophyphdprograms/] of philosophy PhD programs according to average student rating. This week I am covering the second quartile. What is the difference between these quartiles? There are only two statistically significant ones out of all the measures

2021 Top Programs

Top Quartile of Philosophy PhD Programs Ranked by Average Student Rating with Placement Rate and Student Comments

In this blog post I collate some updated information about 30 of the best rated PhD programs in philosophy according to APDA surveys of past graduates and current students: * keywords (if 3+ participants chose the keyword), * average program ratings (if 5+ participants rated the program on that dimension), * job placement,

PhD Programs

New Findings on Diversity, Program Ratings, and Job Placement

This past summer APDA sent a survey [https://academic-placement-data-and-analysis.ghost.io/new-survey/] to past graduates and current students in philosophy PhD programs. Some of the results have already been discussed in blog posts at Daily Nous [https://dailynous.com/2021/10/05/guide-to-graduate-programs-in-philosophy-based-on-job-placement-and-student-experience-guest-post/] , Philosopher's Cocoon [https://philosopherscocoon.typepad.

2021

New Survey !

Over the past year APDA has worked with a Board of Advisors to determine the best research and communication methods for the project going forward. This summer we have been focused on three main projects: * redeveloping the website * updating the database to include recent graduates * sending out a survey To

News

Changes at APDA: Board of Advisors and Website

Since the last post [https://academic-placement-data-and-analysis.ghost.io/top-philosophy-programs/] in July, APDA has been making some changes. First, there is now a Board of Advisors [http://placementdata.com/about/]. Advisors were selected based on the rough criteria of a) being familiar with the APDA project and/or data analysis regarding

PhD Programs Featured

Best PhD Programs in Philosophy

What is the best PhD program in philosophy? In one way of thinking about it, this question doesn’t make much sense. Philosophy is many different things and philosophers can be many different types of people, so the best program will depend on the person in question and the type

PhD Programs

Philosophy PhD Programs: Rice University, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, and University of Notre Dame

In this blog post I provide some detailed, up-to-date information about three final philosophy PhD programs. This week's picks are Rice University [https://philosophy.rice.edu/], University of Hawai'i at Mānoa [https://hawaii.edu/phil/], and University of Notre Dame [https://philosophy.nd.edu/]. These programs

PhD Programs

Philosophy PhD Programs: University of Arkansas and Southern Illinois University

In this blog post I provide some detailed, up-to-date information about two philosophy PhD programs. This week's picks are University of Arkansas [https://fulbright.uark.edu/departments/philosophy/] and Southern Illinois University [https://cola.siu.edu/philosophy/]. These programs were chosen randomly, using an app called Pickster. (Next

PhD Programs

Philosophy PhD Programs: Birkbeck, University of London and University of Rochester

In this blog post I provide some detailed, up-to-date information about two philosophy PhD programs. This week's picks are Birkbeck, University of London [http://www.bbk.ac.uk/departments/philosophy/] and University of Rochester [https://www.sas.rochester.edu/phl/]. These programs were chosen randomly, using an app

PhD Programs

Philosophy PhD Programs: McMaster University and University of Washington

In this blog post I provide some detailed, up-to-date information about two philosophy PhD programs. This week's picks are McMaster University [https://philos.humanities.mcmaster.ca/] and University of Washington [https://phil.washington.edu/]. These programs were chosen randomly, using an app called Pickster. (Next week's

PhD Programs

Philosophy PhD Programs: University of British Columbia, University of Missouri, University of Nebraska, and University of Virginia

In this blog post I provide some detailed, up-to-date information about four* philosophy PhD programs. This week's picks are University of British Columbia [https://philosophy.ubc.ca/], University of Missouri [https://philosophy.missouri.edu/], University of Nebraska [https://www.unl.edu/philosophy/], and University of Virginia [https://philosophy.

PhD Programs

Philosophy PhD Programs: Florida State University and York University

In this blog post I provide some detailed, up-to-date information about two philosophy PhD programs. This week's picks are Florida State University [https://philosophy.fsu.edu/] and York University [https://phil.laps.yorku.ca/]. These programs were chosen randomly, using an app called "Pickster [https://www.dropbox.

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