More prospective students this year have elected to come to Harvard than at any point in the past 25 years, raising the yield for the class of 2002 to nearly 80 percent, a spokesperson for the admissions office said yesterday.

Nearly four-fifths of admitted high school seniors, or 79.3 percent, will enter Harvard in the fall, compared to 76.3 percent last year, according to Christine A. Kelley, assistant to the director of admissions.

The record-high number means that no more than a handful of students will be admitted off the wait list, said Marlyn McGrath Lewis '70, director of under-graduate admissions.

"We were delighted," McGrath Lewis said. "We go through all this agony to choose people to admit, so we're always very pleased when we succeed in enrolling so high a number."

The increase in yield could dispel fears that Harvard's financial aid system will drive away prospective students. While Yale, Princeton and other selective colleges have made well-publicized expansions to their aid programs this year, Harvard's system remains unchanged.

In response to such concerns, the financial aid office held additional hours during April. McGrath Lewis said the changes ensured a greater volume of calls.

"Because we knew that financial aid offers from other places were so varied, we knew from the outset that we'd have to be extra available," she said.

However, Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 cautioned against attaching too much significance to the rise.

"I think these numbers bounce around a bit every year, and I don't know that a lot of significance can be attached to the small change from last year," he said in an e-mail message. "Overall, of course, Harvard's excellence is the reason why the yield number is consistently so much higher than that of other colleges."

The number of women in the class of 2002 has decreased from last year's all-time high, to 769, or about 47 percent, Kelley said.

While ongoing controversies over the status of Radcliffe have highlighted questions of women's place at the College, McGrath Lewis said she doubted the issues influenced students' choice.

"I didn't really see it," she said. "[However], for some women, the uncertainty of where they fit as Radcliffe students is a problem--a concern that in some way, they might be second-class. I don't believe [the current split] is a helpful feature of our institutional landscape."

The number of minority students accepting admissions offers has increased slightly.

According to the admissions office, levels of Asian-American, black and Latino Students have all increased, to 19 percent, 8.9 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively. Native Americans will remain constant at 0.7 percent.

The high yield could be a factor in keeping Harvard at the top of the widely-cited U.S. News & World Report ranking of colleges.

"It could play a small part in helping Harvard maintain its number-one selectivity ranking," said Robert J. Morse, director of research for the magazine's "America's Best Colleges" feature.

However, Morse said the impact will be minor at best. Yield comprise 10 percent of the magazine's selectivity ranking, which in turn makes up 15 percent of the larger ranking--or 1.5 percent overall.

Lewis said she attributes the improved yield to a number of factors, notably more personal contact between admissions officers and prefrosh and increased accessibility.

For the first time, all admitted students received personal letters of congratulations from admissions officers.

"People loved it," she said. "I think it was the human contact."

Lewis also cited more intangible factors, like the popularity of the Academy Award-winning film "Good Will Hunting," set in part at Harvard.

"I made a remark that "Good Will Hunting" was the first phase of our recruitment for next year," she said, "Physically, this place sparkled."

"Exposure's never bad," McGrath-Lewis added."Name recognition of any kind helps you."

The overall number of first-years in the classof 2002 will not be affected by the improvement inyield.

"We expect precisely the same number ofstudents in the first-year dorms that we have hadthis year," said Dean of First-Years ElizabethStudley Nathans in an e-mail message. "[Theincrease] does not mean an increase in the size ofthe Class, or any changes in housing, or inAnnenberg."

Lewis said the yield will generate the correctnumber of students