Ok, but the point other people are making here is that looking at the raw numbers of applicants in absolute terms does not yield an accurate estimate of the competitiveness of a program or the ease of gaining admission. The point being made by
@MCParent is that programs with significantly fewer applicants are not really all that easier to gain admission to, nor do they have less competitive applicants. It may actually be the case that equally competitive candidates are applying to both programs with greater and lesser numbers of applicants, but the former are also getting submissions from less competitive applicants due to their desirable geographic proximities (e.g. SoCal, NYC, and Chicago) and/or name cache (e.g. UNC Chapel Hill and Yale). Thus, applying to less geographically desirable locations or schools with weaker brand names may not necessarily increase your chances at admission.
If you want to diversify your applications and improve your chances of admission, first screen out any unfunded programs. They're easier to get into, because they are expensive, take too many students, provide poorer quality training, and don't diligently screen out underqualified applicants. Secondly, narrow it down to the type of program you want. You may want to pick programs that more strongly identify with scientist-practitioner or clinical science models, depending on your career goals. Beyond this branding, you want to identify programs that will offer you the type of training you're interested in, e.g. internal and external practica with the modalities, populations, pathologies, and contexts with which you want to gain experience and expertise. Thirdly, narrow it down to programs with faculty doing research that you are actually interested in pursuing. You also need to make sure they are taking applicants for the cohort with which you are applying, so that will automatically narrow down your choices for a fourth pass. Fifthly, look deeper into the background for these remaining faculty. What kind of grants and funding do they have? How many publications do they have? How long have they been researching this particular area you want to pursue? Are they authors or coauthors on important and/or commonly sited research in this area? This will help you gain an understanding of their rank and prestige in the community, which will give you somewhat of an idea of how competitive applying to work with them will be. The more famous a professor is in their specialty area, the more publications they have in top journals, and the more grants and external funding they have, the more people will be applying to work with them, but you'll also likely get more qualified applicants. They are the applicants who are probably the most familiar with that particular research area and professor, making them better fits than people applying just to the program/university in general or who have shallower understandings of the application process in general and that professor's research specifically. Younger, less-established faculty will receive fewer applications simply because they are not as well known, but they do have the potential benefit of being somewhat more motivated to produce publishable research in a shorter timeframe, because they have more to prove, especially if they don't have tenure yet. To diversify your applications, send some applications to "rock star" faculty in your research area, some to well-established, but less well-known faculty in your area, and some newer, younger faculty in your area (though with the caveat that they do have substantial productivity for their experience level).
