New APPS

In two previous posts I have provided data on gender and AOS for placements reported at ProPhilosophy  (2011-2012 and 2012-2013) and PhilAppointments (2013-2014). As of today, I have data on 729 placed candidates. In this post I aim to use this and other data to estimate the total number of candidates seeking employment and to calculate an approximate overall placement rate. 

 What do I mean by "other data"? For the past few years I have attempted to collect information on the average number of students who graduate from each department in order to calculate placement rates (placed candidates/total graduates):

–In 2011-2012 I calculated the placement rate for 42 departments using NRC data from 2002 to 2006 to estimate the number of yearly graduates from each department and using the reported placements at ProPhilosophy to determine the number of placed candidates for each department. 

–In 2012-2013 I calculated the placement rate for 60 departments using the 2012 APA Guide to Graduate Programs data from 2008 to 2012 to estimate the number of yearly graduates and using reported placements at ProPhilosophy to determine the number of placed candidates. 

The data on yearly graduates is better this year, but is not yet complete. I started with the 2013 APA Guide to Graduate Programs and supplemented this with data I obtained by emailing department chairs. I so far have data on the average number of yearly graduates between 2009 and 2013 for 73 departments that placed candidates between 2011 and 2014 (and 12 departments that do not have reported placements between 2011 and 2014).** For 10 more departments I have data on the average number of graduates between 2008 and 2012. Of those departments that are primarily english-speaking, I do not have any data on 32 (10 others placed candidates but are not primarily english-speaking). On June 10th and 11th I sent emails to the chairs of most of the departments for which I have missing data. For now, I have data on 83 of 115 (english-speaking) departments that placed candidates between 2011 and 2014 (72%). 

Using this data, I estimated the number of yearly graduates on the market by summing up the mean yearly graduates for each of 83 departments (376 total) and adding this number to the average of these means (4.5) multiplied by the number of missing (english-speaking) departments (32). I thus estimate that 521 new graduates have entered the market each year from those (english-speaking) departments that have reported placements on ProPhilosophy and/or PhilAppointments between 2011 and 2014, for a total of 1,562 graduates in this time period (520.77*3). Since 425 of the placed candidates did not report prior positions, I estimate an overall placement rate for new graduates of around 27% (425/1562). If I added to this the data that I have on yearly graduation rates for departments that did not have reported placements in these venues (ProPhilosophy and PhilAppointments) between 2011 and 2014 (12 departments), I would estimate around 100 more graduates on the market between 2011 and 2014, making the overall placement rate closer to 26% (425/1662).

Narrowing this down to tenure-track placements, 518 candidates achieved tenure-track placement between 2011 and 2014. 275 of those who achieved tenure-track placement reported prior positions, but 25 of these had a prior position in this time range (2011-2014) for which they did not report prior positions, and so may have been new graduates in this time range. This means that 268 of the candidates who achieved tenure-track placement were likely new graduates at some point between 2011 and 2014 (518-275+25). Thus, the placement rate for tenure-track positions could be as low as 17% for new graduates in this time period (268/1562).* (Incidentally, 17% is the percentage that I estimated as a placement rate for tenure-track jobs at the Philosophy Smoker Blog in 2012.)

What about those with prior positions? 304 of the 729 placed candidates in this time range had prior positions (not including prior positions obtained within this time range). If we assume that the placement rate for those with prior positions is the same as for those without prior positions, as many as around 2700 candidates may have been on the market between 2011 and 2014 (1562+(304/.2720)).

*Update: Note that the above placement rates are calculated for reported hires. If, for example, 10% of tenure-track hires were not reported in these venues then the tenure-track placement rate for new graduates between 2011 and 2014 would be closer to 19%. On the other hand, many of those with priors do not report them. I noticed this with those candidates who achieved multiple positions in this time period, for whom I corrected the data. If 10% of those with priors fail to report priors, then the placement rate for new graduates to tenure-track jobs would be closer to 15%. 

**Update: I accidentally omitted some of the relevant departments in the previous posting. All of the data listed here has been updated.