The most expensive personality test in America costs $300k

I've been rejected by plenty of things in my life. Startups that went nowhere. Investment pitches that flopped. Even six out of seven preschools in Massachusetts (apparently my toddler's personality needed work too).

But imagine my surprise when I learned that Harvard University has been systematically rating people who look like me as having worse personalities than everyone else. For the past decade.

This isn't some underground psychological study. It's America's most prestigious university openly using "personality scores" to decide who gets to pay them $320,000 for a bachelor's degree.

The $750B personality industry

College admissions in America has quietly become the world's largest personality assessment business. We're talking about a $750 billion industry that processes millions of applications annually, each one subjected to a mysterious "holistic review" process.

Harvard, like most elite universities, assigns every applicant a personality score based on traits like "positive personality," "likability," "courage," and "kindness." These scores help determine who gets accepted to institutions with sub-10% acceptance rates.

Here's the kicker: The personality scoring consistently produces the same result. Asian American applicants receive lower personality ratings than any other racial group, according to data revealed in the Students for Fair Admissions lawsuit.

Think about the audacity here. Harvard is essentially claiming they can measure your child's character, leadership potential, and likeability from a paper application—and charging $300,000+ for the privilege of their assessment.

The scoring mystery

How exactly does Harvard measure personality without meeting applicants in person? Great question. Even Harvard seems fuzzy on the details.

The university's admissions officers read essays, recommendation letters, and extracurricular lists, then assign numerical ratings for academic achievement, personal qualities, and overall assessment. The personal rating weighs heavily in final admissions decisions.

But here's where it gets weird: The data shows Asian American applicants consistently score highest on academics, second-highest on extracurriculars, yet lowest on personality metrics. Every. Single. Year.

It's like a restaurant that consistently gives five-star reviews to the food and service but somehow always finds the Asian customers "less pleasant to be around." You'd start questioning the review system, right?

The Caltech experiment

Want to see what happens when you remove personality scoring from elite admissions? Look at Caltech.

Since California banned affirmative action in 1997, Caltech's Asian American enrollment has climbed from roughly 25% to over 40%. Meanwhile, Ivy League schools have maintained remarkably steady Asian American enrollment around 15-20% for three decades.

Same applicant pool. Same academic credentials. Vastly different outcomes depending on whether "personality" factors into admissions decisions.

The consistency is almost mathematically impossible unless you believe that Asian American students have somehow maintained identical personality deficits across generations while excelling academically.

The hidden cost

Elite universities market themselves as meritocracies, but they're really running the world's most expensive personality consulting business. Families spend thousands on test prep, admissions consultants, and application coaching—all to pass a character assessment that appears rigged from the start.

Parents are hiring "personality coaches" to help their kids seem more "well-rounded." Summer programs that cost $10,000+ promise to develop "leadership qualities" that admissions officers supposedly detect in applications.

The personality scoring system has created an entire cottage industry of consultants who claim they can teach your kid to appear more likeable on paper. It's like paying someone to help you fake your way through a Rorschach test.

The ultimate irony

Here's what makes this particularly absurd: Many of the Asian American students being dinged for "poor personalities" go on to become exactly the kind of leaders these universities claim to want.

They start companies, lead teams, win Nobel Prizes, and somehow manage to function socially despite their allegedly deficient personalities. It's almost like the personality scoring system measures something other than actual personality.

Meanwhile, universities continue charging premium prices for their assessment services while insisting their methods are fair and holistic.

The real test

The most expensive personality test in America isn't actually testing personality. It's testing how well families can navigate an opaque system that seems designed to produce predetermined outcomes.

Harvard and its peers have created a $300,000 assessment that claims to measure character but consistently reaches the same conclusions about entire ethnic groups. That's not holistic evaluation—that's expensive bias with a fancy name.

The real personality test? Whether universities have the character to admit their scoring systems might be flawed. So far, that's one assessment they keep failing.