GW received a record-breaking 20,475 undergraduate applications this year, representing an increase of 3 percent from last year and making admission to the University this year more competitive than ever, University administrators said this week.

Executive Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Kathryn Napper said Monday that applications following the Jan. 10 deadline reached 20,475, an increase of more than 600 applications from last year.

“I’m pleased to report that applications are up from last year,” Napper said in an e-mail. “We have received the most ever applications in University history.”

Napper noted said the only other time the University received more than 20,000 applications was for the fall of 2004 when it had 20,100 applicants.

Following last year’s 2-percent-yield increase, Senior Vice President for Student and Academic Support Services Robert Chernak said the admissions office will be significantly more selective this year.

“It is more likely this year that we will accept a smaller percentage of applicants than last year and establish a slightly larger wait list,” Chernak said.

Napper said the total number of early decision applications also increased by 17 percent this year, with 2,285 total Early Decision I and II applications compared to 1,940 in 2009, making early admittance at GW more competitive.

“We have already made a conscious decision to accept fewer early decision applicants than we did last year even though our early decision application pool was larger than last year,” Chernak said in an e-mail.