Interestingly enough, fewer SOAP spots this year seems to imply that perhaps all these years, programs might have been the ones who have been suboptimally interviewing and/or ranking candidates? It's unclear until we get final reports but anecdotally at least, it sounds like many applicants erred on the side of caution and applied more broadly and to a greater number of programs than in the past (saving $$$ on travel definitely contributed). Programs theoretically have also compensated by increasing slots and/or expanding their rank lists.
Taking into consideration the unofficial agreement there has also been a maldistribution of invites among applicants this year despite the increase in apps but that the Match seems to have still done okay, I feel like the pressure of this unpredictable cycle affected the behaviors of programs more so than applicants? Most people I know interviewed at more places than they normally would, but surprisingly not egregiously so (maybe like 3-5 more programs on avg). I can't help but wonder if fewer SOAP spots in many specialties this year is reflecting a change in the programs' expanded pool of candidates and rank lists, esp since so many had predicted that there would be a whole lot of SOAP this year.
Lots of conjectures... can't wait for more data