Greetings, I've been stalking for a while but not yet posting... thanks for entertaining my obsessive tendencies and sharing your results.
One important thing to keep in mind is that we can't conflate the hardest-to-get-into with the top schools. Arguably there are many factors that make a school like NYU desirable... off the top of my head, excellent funding and location are easy examples. I applied to top schools but was limited in my geographic mobility because I have a partner already in a PhD program. Like me, there are many New Yorkers who don't want to leave New York, and I can guess this has something to do with the high volume of applications they receive, but that's just a guess.
~ct