Max
I just wanted to chime in on what I noticed at tuskegee when I interviewed there. Although the majority of undergraduates there were african american, I did noticed when I tour the vet school itself, most of the student were caucasian. Actually, I didn't see any students that were black/minority. I thought this was paticularly interesting.
I can't say that I am a little offended by your comments. I feel like you're saying that I was accepted b/c I am a minority and not b/c I worked hard. Maybe you're just generalizing, which is not right either. You don't know that specifics of each applicant to make the general statement that under par minorities are being accepted over more qualified caucasian applicants. Maybe, you are a great student but you didn't do well at the interview. that's just my guess.
I'm glad you're happy about going to SGU, but you need not imply that Alabama has nothing to offer in terms of culture. Alabama was the battleground for the civil rights movement in this country and has a temedous amount of culture has evolved from that. In the 1960, the Freedom Rides happened. Student civil right demonstrators were getting the **** beat of of them (literally) by the local government for using public bathrooms in greyhound stations. I doubt that was happenning when you were there. Just a little a respect.
It's okay that you're dissatisfied. I was too about their organization too (one of the reasons I declined acceptance). But the way I felt during this whole application process is that you're applying to their school. It's their school and they have the right to take their time. do it their way. It's a little pretentious to demand anything from them or any of the schools. Also, if the four pages to write one's "sob story" you mentioned referred to Tuskegee's application, those four pages were wide ruled one sided sheets that you had to hand write. I felt that it wasn't enough to write anything substantial at all.
I sorry if I seem alittle hard about my response, like I said, I was a little offended.
At no point did I ever say Alabama had no culture. Someone tried to imply Grenada was no different than AL, and I don't see how a google search can give you a fair basis for an opinion when you've never seen the area. And during my trip there was only one white student participating in the whole interview process/tour dealy. The students at my school came from poor parts of wv, and they were white. But then again color isn't the first thing I think about and I tend to forgot others don't think that way. I had classes with them, and know their stats. All I'm saying is both I and the other vet schools didn't think they were qualified, and that's strictly an opinion.
I don't understand how asking for at least a rejection letter or giving you more than 3 days notice is being pretentious. It's common courtesy and also reflects badly on their school, as does not answering phones, returning messages and email, etc. The others schools seem to handle this adequetly (sp?). While they are interviewing us, we're interviewing them as well. There's no reason you can't look around and say, eh, this isn't for me. I did not like much about the area (strictly personal preference, I don't want to drive 15 min to a town just like the one I was at for four years...grew up in a tiny town and want something different), thought they were disorganized as you mentioned, and felt not enough stress was put on the academic attributes of the student.
That being said, that could only affect a few students. It's not good academics/no diversity or bad academics/diversity. There's probably tons of people that get accepted, maybe you included, that have kick ass academics/extracurriculars/experience and are also a minority. I think that's what gets left out of the argument. And honestly, all things equal I think a minority should be accepted. I could have played up the fact that I also come from a poor small town, moved a lot, and even that I have cherokee heritage. I'm sorry I just don't think that's how it should work. I think diversity is great. However, being white shouldn't hurt people, as we've seen at some schools like Michigan, where the differences in academics were vast between whites that got rejected and minorities that got in. As in, no interview could make up for the fact.
Nothing from my posts implies that your not qualified and that you were accepted b/c your a minority. I've never met you! It's so easy to jump on that wagon whenever race comes into an arguemnt. I think most agree that race shouldn't trump all other attributes of an applicant, as someone discussed above. Did that happen at tuskegee? Who knows, but I think we can still agree that it shouldnt.
Look my posts aren't that serious. I was saying for one reason or another (whether I did crappy or not) I didn't get in and in the end it was for the better. I think that's a positive thing. I tend to make jokes about less than ideal situations. All I was saying is that if you look at the living conditions of the towns of Tuskegee and St. George they looked similar (not much around, kinda poor), and I was making lemons out of lemonade by saying there's a beach. I'm sorry, but I got the impression that there was some self-imposed segregation, and a couple of students I know felt the same. I don't want to be punished for being a certain race any more than anyone else does (and I don't need a constent lecture about civil rights and how my ancestors where slave owners - they weren't). Nor do I want to feel the need to be around people like me. I like to be around all sorts of people. We're all different. If someone says they prefer a certain area for whatever reasons, you can't argue that. We're all different. Some people hate cold weather, some people hate cities, etc.
Grenada is beautiful and yes there is a lot of culture there and that's one attribute...it's also completely foreign and new. There's also a lot of opportunities that suit my interests (hiking in the rainforest, snorkeling, marine life, scuba, etc). I'm intersted in exotics and marine life. Now for the person that likes the midwest and wants to do large animals, they might hate Grenada. And that's their opinion, I can't tell them they're wrong.
My point was, being black doesn't mean your going to contribute to diversity, especially in a predominantly black area. Especially if you going to segregate yourself and don't try to learn from others different from you. Let's face it a lot of people do this (this is the south remember). Yes sgu is 85% caucasian but again race != diversity. That 15% comes from all over the world. The people of the island come from African slave/french descent and theres also those from British decent. The people from the states also come from all over. And it's a completely different country, with different customs and so on.
I figured I was toast once he gave them his interview! They seem to like "hardships" like that. They seemed really impressed with my undergraduate research, but when I asked about the research they did at AVC, they really couldn't give me an answer. I did get accepted, however, when you interview keep in mind the college's goals at the same time. I made the mistake of not looking in AVC's research endeavors nor their specialties as a hospital. AVC is a very nice school, it is expensive (thank god Iowa pulled through!!), they seem to have an extensive small animal emphasis. The whole international student deal would have been exhaustive and problematic for my fiance. 
