It’s not a personality test. Personality is one of the 5 categories in which Harvard rated/rates applicants on a scale of 1 to 6. It’s common for selective, holistic colleges to rate applicants on scales of 1-5 or 1-6 in a variety of categories like this, including categories that depend on desired personality/character type criteria, as reflected by LORs, essays, interview, and other components of the application. The NYT article mentions that 18% of Asian applicants were rated 1-2 in this “personality” category compared to 21% of White applicants. That’s not a huge difference, and not suggestive of a “contingency section.” It’s also likely that the prosecution selected this specific range of 1-2, rather than average or listing the percentage at each number because it was the range that best showed their position. The more important question is whether students were deserving of the ratings they received, based on the application. There is not enough information in the article to determine this.