There was a slight uptick in the admissions yield this year, with 47.4 percent of accepted students in the Class of 2017 enrolling at Georgetown compared to last year’s rate of 47 percent.

Of the 3,293 students admitted in early action and regular decision, 1,561 submitted deposits by the May 1 deadline, according to Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Charles Deacon.

“This year has been, by the numbers, the best,” Deacon said. “The yield is about the same, but we won more of our top students. We know that by the way we code them in the system.”

The yield for Georgetown College was 43.5 percent, while the School of Foreign Service had a yield of 47.2 percent. The McDonough School of Business and the School of Nursing and Health Studies had higher yields of 53.6 percent and 53 percent, respectively.

The MSB, which had the highest yield, had a 15.7 percent acceptance rate this year, the lowest among the schools for the first time.

According to Deacon, students from 70 countries and all 50 states have submitted deposits. More than 1,000 high schools are represented.

The enrolling class is the first in university history to have an average score above 700 in both the SAT critical reading and math sections.

According to Deacon, the university usually aims for a 45 to 47 percent yield, putting this year at the higher end of the range.

“We’re pretty much right where we want to be,” Deacon said. “But that will change as people get off on other waiting lists and as we take some students off of our waiting list.”

Although the university is still waiting on late deposit slips, 50 students have already been accepted from the waitlist. Deacon expects about 45 of those students to submit deposits.

While this would bring the number of deposited students over the goal class size of 1,580 students, Deacon said the waitlist acceptances would account for attrition over the summer.

“How many withdraw is hard to predict,” Deacon said. “It depends on how many waitlisted students get off at the other top schools or how many people might defer for a gap year.”

According to Deacon, approximately 40 students withdraw each year, while about 25 students decide to take a gap year.

Georgetown and Ivy League schools all stop waitlist acceptances on June 30, at which point the university must estimate how much attrition will occur in July and August. Furthermore, while many other universities can accommodate over-enrollment, Georgetown must stay below 1,580 students to comply with the component of the 2010 Campus Plan agreement that caps total enrollment of undergraduate and graduate students on the main campus.

“We won’t go over, and we will hopefully fill up close to the real number,” Deacon said. “The waitlist numbers will pretty much offset the people who withdraw.”

There are 100 students still on the waitlist, down from the 2,000 originally waitlisted. Deacon said as many as 25 people may receive acceptances in the coming weeks.

“It’s a domino effect. It starts at the top,” Deacon said. “If Harvard takes somebody, Yale loses somebody, then Yale takes from another school. Fortunately, we’re high enough on the chain that we don’t lose that many.”

Deacon attributed the higher yield rate for the MSB and the NHS to the two schools’ specializations.

“Those are the schools that directly seem to confer jobs at the end,” Deacon said. “The yield has been higher for the last seven years for those schools.”

Although the SFS has a similar benefit, Deacon attributed its comparatively low yield to its competition with other top schools.

“It’s surprising that the SFS’ rate is under 50 percent,” Deacon said. “It reflects where we’re losing them to. There’s a higher rate of crossover between accepted students there and other top schools. They’re in more direct competition.”

Deacon stressed the importance of refraining from excessive comparisons with other universities.

“Yield is an elusive number. If we were like a lot of places with early decision where yield is 100 percent, our yield rate would be in the 60s,” Deacon said, referring to other schools’ binding admissions policies. “We choose early action in the students’ interest really, and we’re really looking to compare our numbers to our numbers, and not to others’ numbers.”

Overall, Deacon expressed satisfaction with the outcome of this year’s admissions process.

“We met all of our goals,” Deacon said. “We purposefully kept our early admissions rate low so we could look at the diverse pool of regular decision candidates.”