Why does it seem like it's harder to get into PhD in psychology than a law or pharmacy degree?

Question

And possibly a medical degree too! I mean, consider the top schools. PhD schools include Stanford, UPenn, Michigan and a few others, and their acceptance rate (PhD program, not Masters) is 4% or less. Law schools are about 7%, even at top ones like Harvard Law or Stanford Law. And Pharmacy PharmD programs are about 15% at top ones like Michigan (4th in nation). Some one explain this to me

Au contraire, all the top phd programs in psychology (although I'm sure it happens in other fields too), such as Harvard psych, Stanford psych, Michigan psych, NYU psych, they guarantee you100% funding... for phd, not masters

Answer 1

My educated guess is:

1) the most important difference is that doctoral programs in psychology are much smaller than any law school and therefore admit fewer students, and

2) these doctoral programs must be more selective because they support their students (with assistantships which carry stipends), and must therefore work with more limited resources, while law schools can depend on the students themselves to finance their studies, and

3) in doctoral programs, PhD candidates work closely with a particular faculty member, and one faculty member can only effectively mentor a very small number of students at once.

Keeping in mind that applicants to law schools considerably outnumber applicants to doctoral programs in one single discipline, let's see how the math makes sense.

A top law school with a large capacity might have 4000 applicants and admit 280 students (7%) into its incoming class, while a top doctoral program in psychology with a faculty of 12 might have 400 applicants and admit 16 (4%).

Answer 2

Probably lack of funds but lots of interest. That would be my guess. In Humaties and Science PhD program, in many schools, they usually give you some financial support in some shape or form (you have to work for it, usually very hard). That appears to be a scarce resource in Psychology.

If you took GRE subject tests, you notice the statistics how many people take every subject.