Once again, Penn State has broken its own record.

Undergraduate applications are up 2 percent over last year, President Graham Spanier recently told the Penn State Board of Trustees.

Jackie King of the American Council on Education, which studies enrollment trends, called the increase in students seeking college admission a "demographic bubble" that dates back to the original baby boom.

The most recent count from the undergraduate admissions office put the total number of applications received at 37,714, with almost half of those submitted online.

"These figures change daily," John Romano, vice provost and dean for enrollment management, said yesterday. "As of today, we have over 18,000 (Web) applications," he said, adding that the number is double the total Web applications from last year.

The national economic recession might be one reason more people are applying to college.

King said enrollment of adult or nontraditional students increases during recessions because people want to return to college to be more valuable to employers or increase their skill level.

"When we enter an economic recession there does seem to be a pattern that there is an increase in the number of students who apply for admission to graduate school," Romano said.

Spanier told the Board of Trustees that the graduate school at Penn State has seen a spike in applications received, and the graduate enrollment office confirmed that applications are up significantly at University Park, but steady at other campuses.

Sometimes graduating seniors "in lieu of entering the workforce which they perceive to be unhealthy" will opt for graduate school, Romano said.

It is only about halfway through the admissions year, but students looking to get into University Park for undergraduate study now would have to meet high standards.

"If you look at the middle 50 percent credentials of those students who were in our first review group this year, that range has shifted upwards a bit," said Patrick Smith, undergraduate admissions office spokesman. The first review group was made up of students who met a suggested Nov. 30 deadline.

Smith estimated that about 59 percent of this year's applicants are from Pennsylvania, while about 41 percent are out-of-state residents. Many out-of-state students apply but do not end up accepting Penn State's offer of admission because of costs, he said.

Notifications of admission were first sent in October, Smith said. About 22,000 notifications for all campuses and majors went out.

The number of applications sent in electronically had nearly doubled from last year, Smith said.

King said there is anecdotal evidence of students applying to more colleges, and she said the ease of Internet applications combined with more selective institutions might be the cause.

"Of course, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy," she said, explaining that students who apply to more colleges in turn cause colleges to be more selective.

All students applying to transfer to Penn State from other universities were required to submit online applications, Smith said.