The number of black applicants to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences has fallen by 33 per cent this year, despite a slight increase in overall applications.

Nina P. Hillgarth, head of the Admissions Office of the GSAS, said yesterday that because of the drop there will probably be fewer blacks in next year's entering student body.

She said the tight job market has discouraged many black students from attending graduate schools, and they have instead sought places in professional schools to improve their prospects of finding jobs.

"Harvard has to compete with all the other schools for the shrinking number of bright black students interested in graduate education, and there is no guarantee that Harvard will get the students it wants," she said.

Approximately 4500 students applied to the GSAS this year, of whom 117 were black, 59 fewer black applicants than last year. But the number of applicants from other minority groups--notably the Mexican and Puerto Rican minorities--kept pace with the trend in overall GSAS applications and slightly increased.

A spokesman from the admissions office of the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences said that applications there are still being processed, but that it appears there are no significant differences from last year.

Hillgarth said that the GSAS made efforts to recruit more black applicants by sending Harvard students to speak with students at various colleges in the country.

She added the special funds for subsidizing black students through GSAS were protected from Federal cutbacks this year and will be maintained.

However, hillgarth said that she was not certain if the GSAS would increase incentives for black applicants next year. "I wonder if you have the moral right to lure students into graduate school when the Ph.D. market is so poor and the job prospects in law and medicine so good," she said.