Yes. We are living at a time of economic distress and the Feds are currently stating that our economy will be sluggish for quite some time. But we knew this would be happen if a Bush had to be President, right?
Anyways, I'll tell you what I heard about the applications. Applications to medical schools are expected to decline by the thousands, while the gpa/mcat competitiveness will slightly increase. Applications to dental schools are expected to increase by a thousand or so, also with a slight increase in competitiveness in applicant pool.
PhD programs in science/engineering/economics will be the hardest. Applicants to US PhD programs are mainly international students from Asia. Since last year to some time this year, Asians had been cheating on their GREs. ( go to the ETS website. It is true ) The cheaters are expected to take those inflated scores to apply for PhD programs in even greater numbers this year. And you know what, the US PhD programs want them so they could state a high increase in quality of their acceptees.
I don't know about law, pharm, pod, or opto schools.