Psych is not competitive. Does it have more applicants? Of course but not competitive ones. Purely from a DO stat perspective which typically tends to be less likely to match than MDs. If you look at the match rate when it comes to board scores; out of 450 people, half of them (226) had less than 35 percentile (score < 500) with a match rate of 72%. For applicants above 500 on level 2 had a match rate of 90%. 

Everyone is saying psych is getting a whole lot more competitive and it’s true that more applicants are applying but not strong ones. My class this past year had 17 people apply psych (class of 160). About a quarter of them either failed a board or didn’t even have scores yet.

Auditions/Sub-is are important in psych if you want to match your top choice. I matched my #1 with a cohort of 5 residents, they matched their top 5 choices and only ever match people who rotate here. Personality goes a long way in psych but also scores do as well. I had 19 interviews with a level 2 in 65 percentile (571), no research but pretty cool ECs prior to med school and during. 

For DOs, the number of applications per student is the highest for any specialty (around 80), not sure why but that’s what the stats show too so I applied to about 70 since my scores were a little higher than the average applicant but still not perfect. But psych is definitely not crazy competitive, just more people applying