Black applications to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences rose 55 per cent this year from 90 to about 140 applicants, Peter S. McKinney, administrative dean of the GSAS, said yesterday.

The increase reverses last year's 32 percent decline in minority applications and "essentially brings the graduate school back to its totals of the year before," McKinney said.

Applications from black students to the graduate schools of Yale and Princeton also increased, rising approximately 14 and 10 per cent respectively, officials at the schools said yesterday.

Recruiting Program

In an attempt to increase declining numbers of minority applicants, Harvard, Yale and Princeton this year instituted a minority recruiting program in which an applicant to one of the schools automatically receives application information for the other two.

McKinney said he cannot attribute the increase in minority applications to any one cause, explaining that "we haven't analyzed whence or why they came."

Deborah Turner, assistant to the dean of the Princeton graduate school, said yesterday she thinks the new plan had a "positive effect," adding that "quite a few students applied to all three schools."

Turner added she cannot be sure if the students applied to all three schools because of the new program.

Princeton this year received at least 125 applications from black students in a total applicant pool of more than 4500, Turner said.

Harvard's total applicant pool dropped slightly this year, from 5000 to about 4900 students.

Robert E. Bunselmeyer, assistant dean of the graduate school at Yale, said yesterday the slight increase in black applications to Yale--from 135 to 145 or 150--doesn't concern me as much as offers of admission. We can get anywhere from ten to fifty offers of admission from this number."

McKinney, too, stressed the importance of the quality of the applicants, saying the increase "is a hopeful sign but it is possible we will end up admitting no more black students than last year."

Figures for Spanish American and Native American applicants to the GSAS are not yet available.

Although Bunselmeyer has not yet reviewed specific applications, he said he has "lots of hope" for another plan initiated this year in which Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania exchange the names of highly-qualified minority seniors who are possible candidates for non-professional graduate schools.