Academic Placement Data and Analysis (APDA) has released its complete 2017 Final Report, an 81-page document that collects data on PhD-granting philosophy programs (including ratings by former students, placement rates, and diversity) and the discipline as a whole (including hiring networks, placement maps, cluster analyses of programs, job descriptions, non-academic hiring).

The report was created by Carolyn Dicey Jennings, Patrice Cobb, Pablo Contreras Kallens, and Angelo Kyrilov, all of University of California, Merced.

Some of the data was reported on earlier.

APDA surveyed former PhD students, asking them, among other things: “How likely would you be to recommend the program from which you obtained your PhD to prospective philosophy students?”

The top 15 programs, on this metric, are:

1. University of California, Berkeley
2. Australian National University
3. Georgetown University
4. University of California, Riverside
5. Harvard University
6. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
7. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
8. Rutgers University
9. University of Pittsburgh History and Philosophy of Science (HPS)
10. University if Wisconsin-Madison
11. University of California, Irvine Logic and Philosophy of Science (LPS)
12. University of Colorado at Boulder
13. Yale University
14. University of Michigan
15. Baylor University

You see the rest of the list beginning on p. 32 of the report, and in the infographic, below.

Placement rate in the APDA report “is calculated by taking all of the graduates in a specific time range and looking at their most recent reported placement type—permanent academic, temporary academic, nonacademic, or unknown.”

Below are the top 15 programs in terms of “permanent academic placement rate” for 2012-2016, that is, “the number of graduates in that time period who are now in a permanent academic position divided by the total number of graduates, of any placement type.” Listed for each department is both the “permanent” rate and the “PhD” rate, that is, the percentage of graduates to obtain employment in PhD-granting programs.

1. University of California, Irvine(LPS). Permanent Rate: 82%; PhD Rate: 36%
2. University of California, Riverside. Permanent Rate: 76%; PhD Rate: 18%
3. University of Virginia. Permanent Rate: 76%; PhD Rate: 0%
4. University of Cincinnati. Permanent Rate: 75%; PhD Rate: 13%
5. Baylor University. Permanent Rate: 73%. PhD Rate: 5%
6. University of California, Berkeley. Permanent Rate: 68%. PhD Rate: 59%
7. University of Florida. Permanent Rate: 67%. PhD Rate: 0%
8. University of Oregon. Permanent Rate: 65%. PhD Rate: 6%
9. Indiana University Bloomington. Permanent Rate: 64%. PhD Rate: 9%
10. University of Tennessee. Permanent Rate: 63%. PhD Rate: 0%
11. University of Pittsburgh HPS. Permanent Rate: 62%. PhD Rate: 43%
12. Georgetown University. Permanent Rate: 61%. PhD Rate: 4%
13. University of Michigan. Permanent Rate: 60%. PhD Rate: 20%.
14. Princeton University. Permanent Rate: 60%. PhD Rate: 36%
15. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Permanent Rate: 59%. PhD Rate: 26%.

Information on the rest of the programs can be found starting on p.44 of the report, and in the infographic, below.

An interesting aspect of the report is its look at hiring networks, data for which can be seen in tables, maps, and charts.

The report also includes a sorting of programs into different clusters by the keywords used to describe them, as depicted in the following dendogram:

See p. 61 of the report for an explanation of how this was put together.

Regarding areas of specialization (AOS), the report finds (p.58):

In terms of AOS categories, the share of graduates in Value Theory of all known AOS categories has changed from 34% in 2006 to 31% in 2016 with a clear downward trend, but the share of graduates in LEMM has gone up in the same period, from 25% in 2006 to 30% in 2016.

The report has a wealth of other information. Discussion of any and all of it is welcome.