For eligible unmatched applicants to residency programs, the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP) can be a chance to land a residency position that went unfilled.
In 2025, SOAP will take place March 17–20 and, as has been the case during the prior three residency application cycles, there will be an added fourth round of SOAP this year.
SOAP is a service of the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). Data obtained from the NRMP offers insight into which specialties offered positions and which applicant types found success through the SOAP process during the 2024 Match cycle.
In 2024, 2,399 post-graduate year 1 (PGY-1) positions were filled through SOAP, a slight dip from 2023 when 2,431 positions were filled through the process. 2024 represented a departure from recent year-over-year trends which show the number of positions filled through the SOAP—1,687 in 2020, 1,773 in 2021 and 2,111 in 2022—has been on a steady incline since the pandemic.
FREIDA™, the AMA Residency & Fellowship Database® (registration required), enables unmatched students to research residencies from more than 13,000 programs both during and following SOAP. Access is free, but extra benefits—such as such as a dashboard that helps users save, rank and keep notes on each program—are available to AMA members.
Categorical positions in SOAP
Categorical positions—full-length residency training positions—made up roughly 60% of PGY-1 positions offered or filled through the SOAP process last year; the remainder of entry-level positions were PGY-1 only.
The specialties with the most categorical positions filled through SOAP were:
- Family medicine—594
- Internal medicine—460
- Pediatrics—232
- Emergency medicine—130
- Psychiatry—10
About 40% of filled SOAP positions were PGY-1 only—meaning that those applicants would have to match with an advanced postgraduate year 2 (PGY-2) position during SOAP or participate in the Match the following year for a PGY-2 position.
Those residents will begin their training by spending a year in a more general discipline before entering their chosen specialty in year two of residency. The most common PGY-1 (only) positions were preliminary surgery (556 positions) and preliminary medicine (117).
There are relatively few PGY-2 positions typically available in SOAP.
Dive deeper:
- If you don’t match, take these 5 tips from a SOAP survivor
- What to know about SOAP's last-minute Match options
- “Meet Your Match”: How to find a position through SOAP
- What to know about preliminary, advanced GME positions
- The SOAP process—what applicants need to know
- Key advice on for unmatched applicants
Applicant types
Most years, the applicant breakdown in SOAP leans heavily toward international medical graduates (IMGs), and 2024 was no different.
The most common applicant participant by type included:
- Non-U.S. citizen IMGs—6,240.
- U.S. citizen IMGs—2,663.
- Senior students at U.S. allopathic medical schools—2,057.
- Previous graduates of U.S. allopathic medical schools—965.
- Senior students from U.S. osteopathic medical schools—867.
- Previous graduates of U.S. osteopathic medical schools—366.
Looking at position fill rates by applicant type, U.S. MD seniors made up 37.8% of all positions filled through SOAP, U.S. DO seniors represented 22% and, international medical graduates collectively accounted for 30% of SOAP placements, filling 724 positions. At the end of SOAP in 2024, 176 positions were left unfilled.
The AMA Road to Residency series provides medical students, international medical graduates and others with guidance on preparing for residency application, acing your residency interview, putting together your rank-order list and more.
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