With its early admissions program about to be tossed into the collegiate wastebin, Princeton’s prospective class of 2011 scrambled to capitalize on the final year of early applications.

This year, Princeton received 2,275 early decision applications, a two percent increase over last year’s pool, according to Lauren D. Robinson-Brown, Princeton’s director of communications.

“It is the second largest ED applicant pool since ED started ten years ago,” Robinson-Brown wrote in an e-mail yesterday.

The record for largest applicant pool was set in 2002 for the class of 2007, with 2,350 early applications received.

Princeton’s announcement that it would end early admissions came less than a week after Harvard’s own announcement this fall.

This year’s numbers continue a trend apparent in Princeton’s early application numbers for the last few years. Last year, the university received 2,230 early applications for the class of 2010. At the time, it was the second-highest number of early applications ever received by the university, and it marked a 9% increase from the previous year.

Harvard admissions officers did not return requests for Harvard’s early application numbers. Last year, the early application numbers were released on Nov. 17.