Mar 31, 2017 11:12 AM EDT By Anne Collins, UniversityHerald Reporter

On Thursday, Harvard College announced that 2,056 students have been offered admission to the class of 2021. It included the 938 students that were accepted last December under the early-action program and on January, thousands also submitted applications.

This year the college received a record of 39,506 applications, up by 1 percent from last year's 39,041. The small increase translated to a 5.2 percent admission rate compared to last year's 5.22, which makes this year the lowest-ever admission rate.

First-generation college students went up slightly from 15 percent last year and they represent 15.1 percent of the admission. Women constitute 49.2 percent of the new students, African-American also increased slightly at 14.6 percent and Asian-American at 22.2 percent. Latino student admissions went down to 11.6 percent from last year's 12.7 percent and Native Americans were at 1.9 percent, and Native Hawaiians at 0.5 percent according to Harvard.

William R. Firzsimmons, dean of admission and financial aid said that since they launched the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative in 2005, the college had increasing numbers of student from a much wider range of backgrounds. At that time the applicant pool had doubled in size.

According to Harvard Magazine academic interests are broadly similar wherein 26.5 percent showed interest in social sciences, 19.3 percent in computer science and engineering, 19.2 percent in biological sciences, 15.5 percent in humanities, 7.2 percent in mathematics, 6.9 percent in physical sciences and 5.4 percent are undecided.

The College remains free for students from families with an income less than $65,000. Families with incomes up to $150,000 pay 10 percent or less of income.

The class of 2021 includes more low and middle-income students. It was revealed that more than half of undergrads come from families in the top 10 percent of the income distribution. There are many more low-income students with the potential to succeed at Harvard and the it's financial aid initiative and other programs aim to recruit and better integrate such students

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