<p>The vogue for the "New Ivies" is of course a spillover function of the increased popularity of the Ivy League itself, and moreover of the baby boom and increasing cultural pressure for boom grand-babies to go to college.
While there has been an increase in applications to music schools, there has actually been a decrease in the number of Americans learning musical instruments. Perhaps as a result, the wave of music school applicants has not caused the elite conservatories to stiffen the admission requirements, and the level of playing required for admission has not really changed at Curtis, Juilliard, and their peers. While their acceptance rates have dropped due to increased applications, the caliber of students entering them has held about steady.
The same is NOT true for HYP etc; as someone said above, it's now harder to get into Bowdoin than it was to get into Princeton 30 years ago. </p>
<p>That is why I don't quite accept the comparison of an "ascendant second tier" of music schools to the "New Ivy" group. Schools as diverse in nature, quality, and selectivity as Pomona, WashU, Lehigh, and Tufts are thriving on their new student demographic, which is made up of many kids who with the same credentials could have gone to Harvard three decades ago. Music schools like San Francisco, Peabody, NCSA, Boston U, and Michigan are not getting better students because of the drop in the acceptance rates at Juilliard and Curtis.</p>