The problem isn't it coming up in interviews, the problem is not getting an interview in the first place because you don't have AOA. Once you're at an interview I don't really think they care a whole lot about AOA, at that point I think a lot of the personal factors come into play and who they see themselves working with.
Data seems to be pretty strong for this.
Use Derm data from 2016
AOA = 88% match rate
No AOA = 69% match rate
Then think about how even further skewed the data would be if you removed all applicants from Top 20 schools that don't offer AOA... The No AOA match rate would probably be closer to 50% but that's pure conjecture.
AOA is a major advantage for a select few specialties, such as neurosurgery, ENT, Plastic Surgery, and Dermatology. I don't think many other specialties care much about AOA, but the one's that do put a lot of weight on it.
EDIT:
Plastic surgery 92% vs 63%
Neurosurgery 90% vs 67%
I think it's hard to draw these types of conclusions without looking at the whole picture. From Charting Outcomes, we get a bit of information, but it's not cross-sectional, so there's not really much we can say from it. Here's some data from the most recent Charting Outcomes where I compare AOA to whether or not the applicant came from a top40 NIH school:
2018 Charting Outcomes for USMD seniors
Derm AOA 91%, non-AOA 74%
Derm top40 90%, non-top40 77%
NSGY AOA 91%, non-AOA 85%
NSGY top40 96%, non-top40 81%
Ortho AOA 93%, non-AOA 78%
Ortho top40 86%, non-top40 83%
ENT AOA 99%, non-AOA 94%
ENT top40 99%, non-top40 95%
(keep in mind this was a weird year for ENT with a very high overall match rate - 2019 numbers will be very different)
Plastics AOA 96%, non-AOA 78%
Plastics top40 89%, non-top40 84%
As you can see, the numbers are relatively similar (with the exceptions of Ortho and Plastics, where it seems like AOA might count for more).
I'm not sure whether or not specific specialties screen for interviews based on AOA. I'm sure some programs in some specialties do, but I don't think across the board any specialty does (or even the majority of programs in any given specialty).
I would agree that not having an AOA chapter at a top 20 school would disadvantage you significantly less than not having an AOA chapter at a non-top school, but I don't think you're at an extreme disadvantage not having an AOA chapter at a non-top school, though it certainly won't
help.
I'm also not aware of any non-top schools that don't have an AOA chapter (if you know of any, or know of a list of schools overall, lemme know, I'm pretty curious because I agree it's a bad idea for a non-Harvard type school to just not have AOA unless they're a really new school and haven't had the chance to establish one yet). Another way to figure this out would be to find a non-top 20 school that doesn't have an AOA chapter and see if they've matched anyone into any of these specialties in the past couple of years and where they've matched them.
The other thing I would throw out there just from experience (no numbers, sorry!) is that in at least a couple of these specialties, the school and/or home program you're coming from is more important than whether or not you're AOA.
Finally, if you're at a non-top program without an AOA chapter are you going to be screened out of top programs in these fields? Maybe, probably... but you're also at a disadvantage because you're coming from a not as well known home institution (seriously, look at the percentages of people coming from "top 40 NIH schools" for each of these specialties... it's on the order of 40-50% for ENT/NSG/Derm/Plastics and a little lower for Ortho).
It's a multifactorial problem, but not an insurmountable one, especially if said hypothetical non-top school without an AOA chapter matches frequently into the specialty.
