Yale College accepted 13.9 percent of its early action applicants for the class of 2014, up sightly from last year’s record low of 13.4 percent, according to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

Of the 5,261 early applicants, 730 students were notified of their admission Tuesday. A total of 1,866 applicants were denied admission, while 2,639 students were deferred to the regular decision round. The 50.2 percent of applicants deferred this year is up slightly from the 47.6 deferred last year.

[ydn-legacy-photo-inline id=”1784″ ]

“Our applicants continue to be an exceptionally talented, highly diverse group of students,” Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Jeff Brenzel said in an e-mail. “As always, we only accepted students that we were certain we would also accept in the spring, meaning that a significant number of the deferred students have equally strong chances of admission as the regular decision applicants.”

Other Ivy League schools that have released their early admissions decisions include Columbia University and Cornell University, which admitted 21 percent and 32.6 percent of their early applicants, respectively. Dartmouth College accepted 28.8 percent of its early pool, while Brown offered admission to 20 percent of early applicants. The University of Pennsylvania notified early decision applicants on Dec. 11 but has yet to release data on the number of admitted students.

Stanford University accepted 13.5 percent of its early action students.

The slight rise in this year’s early admit rate is proving to be little consolation for college counselors nationwide who are waiting to hear from students who applied to Yale’s non-binding early action program this year.

Alice Kleeman, a college advisor at Menlo-Atherton High School outside San Francisco, said she does not think the slight rise in early acceptances to Yale suggests a particular trend.

“It seems like situation is pretty much the same as last year,” added Leonard King, director of college counseling at the Maret School in Washington.

Still, Sari Rauscher, director of college counseling at the Waterford School in Sandy, Utah, said the small rise in this year’s early admit rate may be a sign that the competition among early applicants has bottomed out.

Liang Yu, an early admit from South Africa, said she has decided she will definitely accept Yale’s offer. A prospective science major, Yu said she is now planning her transition to college and may attend Bulldog Days in April next year.

For 4,531 other early applicants, though, the news has been less promising. Angela Zhou, an international applicant from New Zealand, said her deferral has left her asking herself whether she would be a good fit for Yale.

“It kind of feels like when you tell someone you like them but they don’t respond back with the same enthusiasm,” she said.

Deferred applicants and regular decision applicants will receive notification of their admissions decisions on April 1.