Now, I didn't read the whole thread, but I'll say this anyway:
If you're questioned about it, you may want to turn the question against them.
For example:
State that you know where your true feelings are (say whichever program you're applying to here), but if the optometry schools collectively feel that you shouldn't become an optometrist, but the dentistry schools collectively feel that you shuld become a dentist, then maybe, just maybe, the admissions programs know something more than you do, and you'd take their collective advice. They are, as practicing clinicians, educators, researchers and students, more knowledgeable than you are on both the profession and the program itself.
Have the belief that schools don't have harder or easier admission requirements, just different teaching aspects or targets for their students, and therefore they need to choose the best student for that environment, an environment that you know very little about from the outside, but one which the adcom knows very much about.
They are merely trying to fill a glove, your hand may be softer than the rest, but the glove has already been made.