The number of early acceptances to the College fell slightly this year, from 712 to 695, despite a record high number of early action applicants, said Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons '67.

Fitzsimmons said overall applications were running about 1,000 ahead of this time last year. Though he said readers do not keep track of numbers as they make acceptances, the high rate of applications "sends a signal that one should be cautious."

"There may be some very good applications later on," he said. "You would not want to be limited" by the number of early admits.

This year, the number of Asian Americans accepted early increased by 30 percent to 177, while the number of Blacks decreased from 47 to 35. Figures for other minority groups remained about constant.

Fitzsimmons said the increase in admitted Asian Americans to 25 percent of the total reflected Harvard's position as "one of the very few institutions in the country that uses a direct-mail search for Asian Americans."

He said the decrease in the number of Blacks was not significant because "last year seemed somewhat an anomaly." In the three preceding years, the numbers of Black students accepted early were between 28 and 35, he said.

Fitzsimmons said the College will again be running the special search for Black students that it began last year.

Forty-six percent of the early admits were women, up from 42 percent last year. Fitzsimmons said the College had been working to attract more women through an increased search and by working with alumni and alumnae associations "to empha- size the opportunities for women and men."

The dean said the percentage increase inwomen's early applications was more than twice asgreat as that for men.

"While we've been making progress, we'd like tomake further progress," he said.

Fitzsimmons cautioned against makinggeneralizations about larger trends from the earlyadmission numbers, though, because they are asmall, somewhat skewed sample. "You really can'ttell much [about relative numbers] by earlyaction," he said.

Minorities are generally underrepresented inearly admissions, compared to their proportion inApril admissions, Fitzsimmons said.

He suggested that a larger proportion ofminority students come from economicallydisadvantaged schools lacking in the "strongguidance counseling...that would encouragestudents to apply early."

Of the 2,653 early applicants, 1,787, ortwo-thirds of the total, were deferred, 125 wererejected and a few other applicants withdrew orsent incomplete applications.

"Some very strong people were deferred,"Fitzsimmons said, indicating that about 100 ofthose will be accepted when reconsidered in thegeneral pool.

A total of 2,165 students were accepted lastyear in the final count. Early action acceptancesare about one third of this total, he said