This was the year when the frenzy to gain early admission to the nation's most selective colleges seemed likely to subside, at least in part because a student admitted under a binding early program cannot seek competing financial aid offers as leverage to negotiate a better package.

But for many admissions offices, there appears to have been no letup.

Duke, Northwestern, Cornell, Columbia, Johns Hopkins and Dartmouth, among other highly selective colleges, received substantially more applications for their early-decision programs this year than they did last.

Other colleges, including Wesleyan, Emory, Pomona and Grinnell, drew about as many early applications this fall as they did last fall, a time when the economic downturn was only just beginning. Each of those programs requires students to withdraw all other applications and attend if admitted.

“;The fear of not getting in is a trump card,”; said Jon Reider, director of college counseling at San Francisco University High School, a private school, and a former admissions officer at Stanford. “;That fear is more powerful than any piece of factual information, such as, 'Gee, colleges are having a hard time with financial aid, maybe we should cast our net fairly widely and not jump the gun and throw our eggs all in one basket.”;'

Not all colleges held their ground, however. Yale and Williams saw a drop in early applications.

For the colleges, which sent notifications to early-admission applicants this week, the calculus appears to have been more complicated than for the applicants. While early-decision candidates are some of the savviest, most talented—and, yes, financially flush students—the increase in early-decision applications did not necessarily translate into a surge of offers of admission.

Cornell, for example, received an additional 136 applications for its binding early-decision program this fall, when compared to last, but accepted 103 fewer students than last year.

While nearly 40 percent of the seats in next year's freshman class at Cornell are now reserved, the university has still allowed itself much flexibility for the main round of admission, when most students will apply. Moreover, colleges like Cornell are committed to assembling the most diverse classes possible—including racially and socioeconomically diverse classes—and many of those who apply early tend to be white and of some means.

Johns Hopkins also received more early applications this fall, but accepted fewer students.

“;Colleges are hesitant to go beyond a certain line when it comes to the percentage of the incoming class that they obtain through early decision,”; said David Hawkins, director of public policy and research for the National Association for College Admission Counseling. “;They're aware of the research, and the potential inequities they might produce if they cross that line.”;

Still, it is difficult to find a clear theme in all the colleges' application figures for this fall. Williams, which has a binding early-admission program, received 73 fewer applications this fall, a drop of 13.9 percent. And Yale—which has a nonbinding early program, but which requires that its early applicants apply to no other early programs—received nearly 300 fewer applications, a drop of 5 percent.

And yet Stanford, which has a program similar to Yale's, got 183 more applications than last fall, an increase of 4 percent. And early applications to MIT, another nonbinding program, surged by 13 percent, the university said Wednesday night.

In the case of Stanford and MIT, early applicants had little to lose, for they have until May to decide whether they wish to attend, a period in which they can consider other colleges' offers.

In response to criticisms of early programs in recent years as the province of the elite (and the plugged-in), Harvard and the University of Virginia are among a handful of schools that have discontinued their early programs.

Some college counselors—including Bill McClintick, a counselor at Mercersburg Academy in Maryland, and a former president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling—said some students at his school had specifically bypassed any binding early programs this fall, in favor of nonbinding, to preserve their financial options.

Reider said several of his students had made similar decisions to bypass early decision entirely for the main round.

“;I have to write a lot of recommendation letters now,”; he said.