Admissions GPS on the New York Stock Exchange: Fit Beats Prestige
Admissions GPS founder Mike Harp joined the New York Stock Exchange, with his son Camille Harp, the original inspiration for the platform, to make one case: the right college is not always the highest-ranked one. It is the school where a student is most likely to belong and thrive.
Rankings measure prestige. We measure fit.
What Mike covered
Five minutes, one argument
- Why he built it. Watching his son Camille fall into the Prestige Trap during the college search, the belief that anything short of the most selective school would limit his future, and knowing that was not true.
- The message. Fit beats prestige. The right college is the one where a student is most likely to belong and thrive, not the one with the highest ranking.
- Why the stakes are high. Families can pay as much as $90,000 a year for college, and more than 1 in 3 students transfer at least once. Finding fit is a way to de-risk the largest investment many families ever make.
- How it works. The Fit Engine filters the 4,000 colleges into a student's Fit 20 recommended schools based on what matters to them.
- Camille's point. The college search should be one of the most exciting decisions of a young person's life, the first big one they make for themselves. Prestige buries that excitement under pressure.
The problem
The Prestige Trap and the Mismatch Crisis
The Prestige Trap is the belief that the best college is the highest-ranked one a student can get into. It turns the search into a zero-sum race, buries the excitement Camille described under pressure, and pushes families toward names instead of fit. The consequence shows up later, as the Mismatch Crisis.
Mismatch Crisis
More than 1 in 3 (38%)
students transfer at least once before they graduate. Students transfer for many reasons, but a lack of fit is a common thread.
Source: National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
The trap is also built on a false premise, that quality lives only at the most selective schools. It does not. US Public Universities admit about 65% of applicants. There are excellent schools that would be lucky to have almost any student. The work is not getting past a gate. It is finding the right ones.
The answer
Measure fit, not prestige
Fit is personal, and measurable. Admissions GPS filters the 4,000 colleges down to Your Fit 20, a personalized list of recommended schools matched to each student's priorities. For a step by step walkthrough, read our guide to choosing a college by fit.
The Fit Engine algorithm weighs five factors to give its recommendations:
Admissions Odds
Your personalized probability of admission based on your academic profile.
Program Strength
How strong a school's programs are in your areas of interest.
Affordability
Your estimated net cost based on your family's income, relative to similar schools.
Campus Culture
How well a school's size, setting, and environment match your preferences.
Academic Outcomes
Based on graduation rates, selectivity, faculty resources, and research classification.
Full interview
The transcript
Lightly edited for readability. Mike Harp and Camille Harp joined Ashley Mastronardi and the New York Stock Exchange TV team.
Admissions GPS is an AI platform that helps match students with their perfect colleges and universities, and it was founded to solve a personal problem. Joining me now is Mike Harp, founder of Admissions GPS, and his son, who inspired the platform, Camille Harp. Welcome.
Thanks so much for having us.
Happy to be here.
So let's get started. How did you come up with the idea for Admissions GPS? What is the story?
Admissions GPS really started with my son, Camille, and seeing all the pressure he was putting on himself during the college search. He fell into this prestige trap, the idea that if he didn't get into the most selective schools, his future would somehow be limited. I knew that wasn't true, so I wanted to help in a way that transformed that pressure into excitement by finding the schools that fit him. We started by asking basic questions. What did he want to study? Where did he want to live? We looked at all these different dimensions of fit to build out our plan. But I realized there wasn't an easy way to search for colleges that way, so I built the solution to do it. It saved us months of time, it saved a lot of stress, and it ultimately helped us find McGill University, which is where he's going in the fall. It ticked all the boxes. It hit all the dimensions of fit, but it wasn't even on our radar before we got started.
So Camille, how does it feel to have a platform created based on your personal experience trying to find a college?
It feels great. The college process should be such an exciting time. You're making a bunch of decisions for yourself, and it's really the first time you're doing that as a teenager, a young adult. But there's so much pressure around it that it makes it a really scary thing. This platform, Admissions GPS, lets you get back into the excitement of it.
When you built this platform for Camille, a lot of parents started reaching out to you for help, and one of your main messages is fit beats prestige. When you have conversations with these parents using your platform, is that a weight off their shoulders?
Absolutely. All the data shows that focusing on fit over prestige is the best way to find a school where your student is going to thrive, but it's been really hard to do. So there has been this sense of relief to have a platform that makes it easier to find fit. Fit is really personal, and to be able to get personalized recommendations based on what fit means for your student and your family has been a huge relief.
College education is one of the biggest investments families make. If you're paying up to 80 or 90 thousand dollars a year for tuition, the stakes are really high. There's also this figure that shocked me. One in three college students transfer at least one time before they graduate. There are a lot of reasons why, but a lack of fit is a key driver. So finding fit is no longer just a nice to have. It's a critical way to de-risk this massive financial investment, and to help make sure the school your child ends up choosing is the one where they're set up to thrive.
Has building this platform with Camille brought you closer together?
Yeah, it's been incredible. Something that was previously very stressful really did bring us together. It made the experience almost fun. We went from feeling all this pressure to really exploring, through the platform and through the schools it recommended, going on campus visits and seeing firsthand what these schools were like. It was a great bonding experience.
Where is the platform now, and where do you plan to be a year from now?
We just launched a month ago, and the initial focus was helping students find the schools and the majors that fit them. We're going to roll out additional features over the coming months to support students across every step of the process. Not just finding the right schools and the right major, but managing essays, finding scholarships, managing all the deadlines, and ultimately weighing financial aid options so you can find the school that's right for you.
Mike Harp, founder of Admissions GPS, and Camille Harp, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you for having us.
Find the schools that fit you
Answer a short profile and see Your Fit 20, the twenty colleges scored to what matters most to you.
Find My Fit 20Sources
Transfer figure: National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. More than 1 in 3 students (38%) transfer at least once before graduating.
Admit rate: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, Table 305.40, 2022 to 2023. Public four-year institutions admit about 65% of applicants. View table.
Admissions GPS. The right college is not always the highest-ranked one. It is the school where a student is most likely to belong and thrive.