Probably a little bit of all the speculations at this point--COVID-19 may have messed up their timeline this much, increasing the interest of students to apply to the mms, or even possibly the thought they would have a lot of movement and didn't not want to "settle" for some lower grade students. We probably will never know the true answer, and is it really for us to judge/know?
Obviously it is a very large boat it seems like a lot of us are in. The biggest thing that I keep on reminding myself is to move forward and be pleasantly surprised if I get the call/email/portal change--what can I do now to better my chances for this coming cycle? What can I do now that I can be proud of in 6 months, a year, etc? Applying to medical school is a grind, why stop now?