I wrote a post a few years ago arguing against an analogy I'd often heard comparing the academic job-market to professional sports. In brief, the analogy is that just as in professional sports, the academic job-market consists a large number of highly qualified and talented people all competing for the same small batch of jobs: TT jobs, the "major leagues" as it were. I suggested that, in my experience and on the basis of some hiring and publication data I collected, the analogy didn't seem right at all. My sense was that there is something like two very different job-markets: a research market and a teaching market.
The new ADPA Report broadly seems to me to broadly bear this out. A good number of PhD programs that aren't highly Leiter-ranked have really good permanent-job placement rates--with some of them placing 60-75% of their graduates in permanent jobs...just not R1 jobs with PhD programs (pp. 44-5):
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%
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%
12. Georgetown University: Permanent Rate: 61%; PhD Rate: 4%
On the other hand, when the ADPA report's placement results are ranked in terms of placements at R1's with PhD programs, the results look very different:
1. University of California, Berkeley (59%)
2. University of Pittsburgh (HPS) (43%)
3. Rutgers University, New Brunswick (36%)
3. Princeton University (36%)
5. Massachussetts Institute of Technology (35%)
6. Carnegie-Mellon University (33%)
7. Harvard University (31%)
7. New York University (31%)
7. University of California, Irvine (Logic & Philosophy of Science) (31%)
10. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (26%)
Etc.
The takeaway? There isn't just one job-market--and different types of grad programs have better placement-rates for different types of jobs. If you want a research job, Leiter-ranked places still seem like the place to go to grad school. However, if you want a non-research/"teaching" job--or just any permanent job--some low/Leiter-unranked schools far outperform more prestigious Leiter-ranked schools. Whatever gripes some people may have about the ADPA report, this seems to me very good stuff to know!
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