Which PhD programs have the highest acceptance rates?

[InquisitiveOne]

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Theoretical disciplines receive less funding, therefore they cannot support as many students. (Also, fewer professors!) In addition, a professor in a theoretical area is only going to want to bother with students who demonstrate enormous capability, because otherwise they will be eat up the scarce funding and not contribute anything (whereas in more applied areas they can still do grunt work in the worst case).

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<p>Okay, that’s a very good point. You have me convinced there. Good point about students needing to demonstrate enormous capability too. This is definitely true in the <em>most</em> theoretical fields. But nowadays, lots of theoretical research is now computational, so mediocre students can at least do grunt work in the worst case (by coding programs). </p>

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It’s true that humanities programs are more competitive (percentage-wise) than science, as the post you links points out. However, this is because humanities receive even less funding (you can think of them as even more theoretical than theoretical sciences, because there is very little concrete gain). Thus they can only support a few, top students.</p>

<p>In my opinion I think pure math, econ, and certain humanities programs (i.e Philosophy) are the toughest for admissions, followed by CS and Physics, followed by other natural sciences, followed by softer sciences and interdisciplinary fields.

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<p>Okay, good point about humanities. I’m really not sure if you can say that Physics is harder to get in than other natural sciences and softer sciences though (how does it compare to chemistry, for example?). <em>Especially</em> if you want full support/funding. Maybe social sciences are easier to get in WITHOUT funding, but I’m talking about getting in with the case of funding. And how are interdisciplinary fields easier to get in? Can you name one top-level interdisciplinary program with an acceptance rate that’s at least 30%? Or a program in chemistry, or a softer science? Certainly, few people get the advice to pursue those fields, but they also tend to attract all sorts of majors, and there aren’t very many of them at all. I’ve looked into cognitive science PhD programs, and the top ones are still amazingly hard to get into (based on what someone from reddit says). Meanwhile, some top level physics and astrophysics departments DO have surprisingly high acceptance rates of over 25% (and these departments are the only ones where I can get reliable acceptance rates since a lot of them post them at gradschoolshopper.com).</p>

<p>Sure, a physics PhD might require more raw intelligence than a PhD in another program. But that doesn’t necessarily make it harder to get into, for someone who probably already has that intelligence.</p>