If you didn’t get it you didn’t earn it. If you only looked at one school that’s on you. If you let one setback define your life. That’s on you.You can call it a "reflex" or use any other word you like, but there is no denying that for 58 years, Affirmative Action, has been (and still is) the # 1 racism in America, victimizing, by far, the largest number of people (whites). It is the embodiment of INEQUITY in America, which has unfairly, unjustly, taken jobs, job promotions, college admissions, college financial aid, business loans, etc. away from innocent & well-qualified whites based on the color of their skin.
It is a deranged abomination, that purports that it's OK to racially discriminate, as long as the beneficiares are black, and the victims are white.
I, myself, have been the victim of AA, since 1977, when I (and 17 other non-blacks) was denied an assistantship at my graduate school (Memphis State Univ). 5 years of college went right down the drain for me, as it those years and all that hard work never existed. I've spent the rest of my life struggling to find my way through a variety of substitute occupations, to make up for the complete loss of my chosen one (as did others who also had to drop out when the aid package was denied to them).
I look for the day when this monstrous "racial inequity" will have a policy to redress it.