I was told this last year by my interviewer. In my 100+ size Det, which has a decent number of scholarship cadets, I haven't seen any evidence to the contrary. There are 3 black students on scholarship, me and 2 of the only 3 black POC. Probably half the Asians we have are on scholarship, but there arent that many so I feel like its safe to say that 85-90% of the scholarship cadets are white. Out of the 70 or so GMC, maybe 30-40% are minorities, a pretty decent number. You'd think, if race was a factor, there'd be a greater percentage of minorities on scholarship.
And I thought that school choice did matter for AFROTC, yes its not tied to one school, but the cheaper your top schools are, the more likely you are to get a scholarship since...what, 70%(?) of AFROTC scholarships are of the type that only pay IS tuition. My interviewer told me it was also a that my #1 school was IS with pretty cheap IS tuition rates considering its a top 5 engineering school. My major and 30+ college credits were also big pluses, had a really good inerview score too. It may have been something large or minuscule that tipped the balance out of the OP's favor, it may have been that his IS choice had high tuition rates or that he scored a few points lower on his interview than the person that did get it. IDK, I just highly doubt it was his race. With all due respect, I feel like that is just a scape goat excuse and people are too quick to turn to it. Hope I didn't come off as too abrasive, I do feel for the great candidates that were passed over this year, but I just get really annoyed when this comes up since all I feel like it does is cheapen my accomplishment.