Next year’s incoming class, if not the College’s most selective ever, still set several admissions records, according to figures released by Byerly Hall last Thursday.

Three more women than men were accepted to the Class of 2008, marking the first time in University history that the College has accepted more females than males.

“Historically Harvard has been seen as a male institution,” Fitzsimmons said. “That kind of a stereotype has been slow in dying. This year’s numbers will go a long way… We hope to erase that stereotype from people’s minds.”

Fitzsimmons said that Byerly Hall has been working on increasing the number of women in the College class since the mid-1970s.

“This is a milestone,” Fitzsimmons said. “But we have to keep in mind that this is a battle that will continue. Social forces out there can sometimes act against women going to expensive private schools like Harvard.”

Thick envelopes were mailed last week to 1,016 women and 1,013 men. However, the final gender ratio will depend on which admits choose Harvard.

According to Fitzsimmons, the class will most likely end up with more male students.

“Historically the yield on women has been lower than the yield on men,” Fitzsimmons said. “We have to be realistic here.”

Last year, females comprised 48 percent of admitted applicants to the Class of 2007.

This year’s admits also included more Asian-Americans and blacks than ever before.

Nearly 19 percent of this year’s accepted students are Asian-American, compared to 16 percent last year.

The Class of 2008 also contains the highest percentage of black students ever admitted, comprising 10.3 percent of this year’s accepted students—a tenth of a percentage point above the previous record.

Fitzsimmons said that because Asian-Americans tend to have high yields, next year’s class may have the most Asian-American students ever.

“On the other hand,” Fitzsimmons said, “African-Americans are among the most hotly contested students in the country. Their yield tends to be considerably lower than the overall average yield, so it’s really very, very hard to know.”

Despite initial fluctuations in figures in December’s early round of applicants, this year’s overall admissions numbers were very similar to last year’s.