Requests for H-1B visas reached all all-time high this year, with nearly 163,000 applications received in five days, federal officials said Thursday.

Because of the volume, Citizenship and Immigration Services will conduct a random lottery to award the 65,000 visas allowed by law for highly educated foreign workers. In addition, another 20,000 will be given to foreign citizens with advanced degrees from American universities, under a special exemption.

“This is the best way to be fair to everybody,” said Chris Rhatigan, a spokeswoman for USCIS, about the random selection process.

The applications not selected will be rejected and returned along with the application fee, she said.

High-tech companies said that the large number of applications proves that the yearly cap is inadequate.

“U.S. employers deserve better than a random lottery to determine if they can hire the highly educated candidates they need,” said Robert Hoffman, co-chair of Compete America, a coalition of high tech companies that includes Oracle, Google, Inc. and Microsoft Corp. “Congress has failed to address the problem as U.S. universities graduate highly educated individuals who leave to work in competitor nations. This madness must end this year.”

Critics, however, say that the H-1B program depresses wages for U.S. workers and is being abused by outsourcing firms.

Ron Hira, a professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, said the program lets companies displace American workers and pay below-market wages.

“The run on H-1Bs is caused by a thirst for lower wage workers and the rise of the offshore outsourcing industry,” he said.