A "thick envelope" from the Harvard Admissions Office will arrive on the doorstep of 2073 high school students this week.

The final acceptance results for the class of 2002 were sent out yesterday afternoon to the 16,818 applicants.

"It was very, very hard to make the final decisions," said Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons '67. "This is certainly among the best classes admitted," he added.

Gender ratios remained the same as last year, with females comprising 48 percent of the admitted group.

The racial composition includes 18 percent Asian Americans, 9.9 percent African Americans, 3.7 percent Hispanic Americans, 3.1 percent Mexican Americans, 1.75 percent Puerto Ricans, and 0.6 percent Native Americans.

Nearly 1050 students, more than half of the 12.3% receiving letters of acceptance, were admitted under the early action program, and approximately 400 of them have already decided to attend Harvard. In addition, about 100 of those deferred earlier have now been admitted.

"The early group tends to be very, very strong," Fitzsimmons said,

All students will have a chance to visit Harvard on the weekend of April 25th-27th, commonly known as "pre-Frosh weekend."

Admitted students have until May 1st to decide whether they will accept Harvard's offer of admission. Financial aid offers may be a factor that is carefully weighed in many of these decisions.

The Financial Aid Office expects to give out $85 million in financial aid to more than two-thirds of the undergraduates in the upcoming school year. The aid comes in the form of scholarships, loans and jobs.

"Financial aid is not a computer process," Fitzsimmons said. "They don't treat it as an accounting procedure."

The financial aid office will hold extended hours throughout April to answer questions from admitted students.

In the wake of new policies which will decrease the tuition the average student's family would pay at Stanford, MIT, Princeton and Yale, Fitzsimmons is expecting a lot of phone calls.

"We certainly think more people will call [as a result of the new policies]," Fitzsimmons said. "What we don't know is how this will ultimately affect the yield...We intend to make competitive offers."