For many students, the summer is a chance to head home, unwind and spend time with family. But instead of returning home, an increasing number of Georgetown students will be spending their summers studying overseas, according to statistics provided by the Office of International Programs.

A record number of students applied to Georgetown this year, marking a 15.7 percent increase over last year’s totals.

According to Dean of Admissions Charles Deacon, 18,700 students applied through the early and regular decision admission processes, surpassing last year’s record number of 16,168 applicants.

The number of applicants to the Georgetown University Law Center fell slightly from last year, leading the admissions office to extend the application deadline more than a month.

Georgetown received a record number of applications this year, but Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Charles Deacon said that this will lead to a three-percentage drop in the overall acceptance rate from last year.

Facing a notoriously low endowment, Georgetown has struggled to keep pace with universities with larger endowments in offering increased financial aid to middle-income students.

“Schools like Harvard, Yale and Princeton, who have much larger endowments — most of their aid comes from their endowments,” said Scott Fleming, assistant to the president for federal relations.

With only a handful of admissions officers, it is impossible for Georgetown to visit all the nearly 30,000 high schools in the United States. But for private, independent and Jesuit high schools, chances are considerably higher that someone from the admissions office will stop by.

University administrators are looking to bridge the economic gap on campus with the expansion of the Georgetown Scholarship Program and an increased focus on attracting students from various socioeconomic backgrounds.

Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Charles Deacon attributed the growth of GSP to growing alumni and parent donations.

Early applications to the McDonough School of Business grew almost 50 percent this year, fueling a university-wide increase in early applications of 31 percent over last year.

Early applications to Georgetown’s three other undergraduate schools also increased this year. The early application deadline was Nov. 1.

Executive Vice President for Health Sciences Howard Federoff discussed the latest step in the evolution of medicine with members of the Medical Center faculty yesterday in the Medical and Dental Building.

Federoff, who assumed his role in April, said that Georgetown may be nearing a critical juncture in medicine.

“In 15 to 20 years, medicine will drastically change. An individual will come to a clinician because he feels well,” Federoff said. “The individual will be told what he’s at risk for, and told how to modulate the risk of diseases, so he doesn’t have to return clinically.”