<p>Another factor that is new, both for the colleges and maybe more so now in the conservatories, is the influx of international students -- mostly from China and Korea, but also from Venezuela and other surprising (at least to me) places that seem to value classical music as much as or more than we do in the US. Oberlin has overseas auditions; Juilliard applicants this year were from Eastern Europe and Asia as well as the U.S. (Though for Juilliard, you have to show up in New York for auditions, which is a filtering factor in itself.) That may well increase the competition and "quality" at some of the conservatories, with the effect that the non-Juilliard/Curtis conservatories will indeed be more competitive over the coming years. It may be that the opportunities for doing something unusual and entrepreneurial is at least as good at a place like Oberlin, especially because almost all the students are undergraduates, as Juilliard, which may account for the outcomes referred to in some of the posts -- but students have to make the opportunities for themselves and make sure that they go to festivals, etc., where they can make important connections.</p>