The Office of Admission is reviewing applications for admission that were submitted under the restrictive early action program, whose deadline was Nov. 1.

Bob Patterson, director of admission, said the office has received approximately 5,950 applications under the early-action program, a 7 percent increase from last year.

Despite the increase in applicants, Patterson said the number of acceptances would remain roughly the same as last year, when 760 offers of admission were given to early applicants.

“Universities and colleges are continuing to see an increase in application[s]…but we’re not seeing an increase in enrollment,” Patterson said. “With an increased applicant pool and the same class size, it’s going to be a little more competitive.”

The restrictive early-action process is a means by which college applicants can apply to Stanford before the normal Jan. 1 deadline and find out their admission status in mid-December. Applicants are either accepted, rejected or deferred. Those accepted have until May 1 to respond to the admission offer.

“We encourage students to apply if they know Stanford is their first choice,” Patterson said. “We also encourage students to apply if they feel prepared and ready to submit their application.”

There is no disadvantage to applying early, and the only advantage would be finding out the decision earlier, Patterson said.

“If we’re going to admit a student in restrictive early action, we would admit the same student in regular decision,” Patterson said.

In reference to deferrals–when a student’s admission decision is postponed to the regular decision round–Patterson said the admission office usually prefers to give students an answer right away.

“We defer students when we want to see additional information from them and when we want to look at them in the context of the entire applicant pool,” Patterson said, “but our philosophy is that we want to let as many as we can know our final decision.”

Matt Lopez ’14 was admitted under restrictive early action last year and expressed gratification for that aspect of the admission process.

“REA is a great way to attract students that are eager and interested in Stanford without scaring them away with the commitment of having to enroll if they get in,” Lopez said. “For me, it was a great relief to find out that I was admitted so early, and it gave me all the more reason to choose to enroll here.”

Contact Brandon Powell at [email protected].