For Caltech, applicants with any realistic chance of admission probably all have similar class rank and GPA anyway, so it is not of much value to distinguish which of them to admit.
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So I suspect what Harvard would say is that their primary reason for valuing the personal factor so highly is how it could affect their community during the time the applicants will be a student. Indeed, if you look at Harvard’s “What We Look For” page, the first three sections are “Growth and Potential”, which is largely discussing their academic factor, “Interests and Activities”, which again is largely discussing their activities/athletics factor, and then “Personal Character”, which is largely discussing their personal factor.
However, the fourth section is then “Contribution to the Harvard Community”. And there are some rather obvious connections between the Personal Character section and that section. Like, the last bullet in the Personal Character section is:
- What about your maturity, character, leadership, self-confidence, sense of humor, energy, concern for others, and grace under pressure?
Compare to the last bullet in the Community section:
- Would other students want to room with you, share a meal, be in a seminar together, be teammates, or collaborate in a closely-knit extracurricular group?
It seems clear Harvard intends these bullets to go together.
Of course you are raising a different and important issue, which is what greater purpose does any of this serve? I note that Harvard is not a public college, and it does not have a mandate to serve the public. Harvard nonetheless has typically suggested that it sees itself as serving an important societal role. So, this is the beginning of Harvard College’s current mission statement:
The mission of Harvard College is to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society. We do this through our commitment to the transformative power of a liberal arts and sciences education.
This has long been a theme in Harvard’s self-perception. They see their role as being educating future leaders, but not just by imparting specific knowledge, but by “transforming” them more holistically. Indeed, they separately say this about the “transformative power of a liberal arts and sciences education”:
Our mission to educate future leaders is woven throughout the Harvard College experience, inspiring every member of our community to strive toward a more just, fair, and promising world.
Back in the day, there may not have been that reference to justice and fairness, but the idea that the total “Harvard College experience” is part of educating “future leaders” is a very old one.
OK, so I suspect Harvard would answer the issue you are raising by saying if a lot of future leaders get their start in highly-selective finance and consulting jobs, then it is fine with them if a lot of their graduates start down such paths. Their mission, as they see it, is to “transform” those and other future leaders through a holistic experience. And I think they would say that the high value they place on the personal factor is directly connected to creating the sort of transformative experiences at Harvard College that they are hoping to provide.
None of this is intended to say you should buy into all this. Indeed, I personally think there are some fair critiques about what these private colleges are really achieving, versus what their mission statements claim they are trying to achieve.
But in the end, if you want admission to one of these private colleges, in that sense you are “voting with your feet”, meaning you are suggesting that whatever it is that Harvard is really doing, you want some of that for yourself.
And Harvard is telling you, quite explicitly, that if you want some of that for yourself, the deal is they will want you to participate in creating that experience.
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