Quoted from Chen Chow’s blog:

This year, total applicants (Early Decision + Regular Decision) to top US Universities have been increasing by quite a lot!

Harvard University increases by 19% to 27,278.
University of Chicago increases by 18%. (International applicants grew 23% to 1,826)
Amherst College increases by 17%.
Northwestern University increases by 14% to more than 25,000.
Dartmouth College increases by 10%.
Cornell University increases by 7.5% to 32,655.
Princeton University increases by 6% to 20,118.
University of Virginia increases by 4% to 18,776.

For Early Decision, Cornell University has 3,095 students (up 3%). Cornell has accepted 1,142 of them, representing 37 percent of the Class of 2012. The acceptance rate for Early Decision is 36.8%, matching thwe rate from last year.

For total applicants from Malaysia to Cornell University, as of now, there have been at least 55 people and am expecting this number to increase further, as not all applicants have contacted me. Last year was 45 applicants, so it is up by at least 22%.

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Quoted from The Boston Globe

Harvard had the most dramatic spike, which it attributed in part to its announcement last month that it was greatly boosting financial aid for students from middle- and higher-income families in the 2008-09 school year. Harvard said yesterday it received 27,278 applications by Jan. 1, a 19 percent increase over last year. Princeton, with 20,118 applicants, had a 6.2 percent increase, and UVA, with 18,900 applicants, reported an increase of 4.5 percent …

… Yale and MIT, which have early admissions, had higher numbers of early applicants this year. Officials at the schools said it could be because of the changes at the other schools. Yet, Yale expects its overall applicant pool to remain about the same size, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had a 4 percent increase in overall applicants.

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All the best to those who applied to these top US universities! (including myself!) The competition is so tough it kills me just to think about it! But God opens doors which no one can close. =)