ok...time to chime in.....
1) it IS easier to get into ortho as a woman....there are just less women who apply, but those who do are getting tons of interviews with inferior stats.
I agree that this has been true in the past but I think things are beginning to change. I think the upper bar has been raised by women this past yr and the bottom will soon have to follow.
My stats make me a very 'average' applicant if you remove the fact that I am a female. I have a 229 which does not make me inferior, but leaves me far from superior. I have a strong engineering background, division 1 athlete, good research expereince, nonAOA, blah, blah, blah. I have always been considering some kind of surgery, but did not decide definitively on ortho till mid MS3.
The point is, I was told by my chairman who is female friendly that I would absolutely match and to apply to top programs because I could end up there if I wanted. This would ring true with the fact that it is easier to get in as a woman.
However, I have had a rough time getting interviews despite having applied to a wide range and number of programs. I think someone with my stats is no longer competitive enough to get an interview at a top program, I also think there are more woman than usual applying this year. I don't think there is something weird in my application I don't know about, I've been told by multiple people it is very solid and I have great letters.
I have watched as some of my male classmates got interviews at programs I did not with 'lower' stats. I'm really excited for them, but I'm also frustrated too. So am I caught in the middle? Who knows? Maybe I just applied to programs who already feel they have enough women right now, maybe they have a strong applicant from their home programs, etc, etc. All I can do is keep trying and come up with a back-up plan.
I guess my point is, we never really know why we don't get the interviews we want, but try not to resent the people who do, its just wasted energy and makes you more miserable/bitter. There are male and female applicants who may get an interview we feel we deserved because they decided at the last second to do ortho, or don't really want it, or whatever reason fires you up. Just keep focusing on yourself and trying to figure out how to make yourself look better.
I think things are begining to even out for males and females as the years pass.
