Biography

About Drusilla Blackman

Drusilla Blackman has spent more than three decades shaping how the world’s most selective universities identify, evaluate, and cultivate talent. As one of the few people to have led admissions offices at both Harvard and Columbia, her storied career has made her a respected voice in higher education. Over the course of nearly four decades, Drusilla has guided countless students, families, and institutions toward the kind of leadership that endures across generations.

Drusilla’s path in education began at Brown University, where she earned her undergraduate degree in psychology and developed a lifelong interest in helping people lead meaningful lives. She continued her graduate study at Yale University, earning a master’s degree in clinical psychology before completing her MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, a progression that reflected her growing interest in marketing and the psychology of human decision-making, and her ability to connect insight about people to strategy and influence.

After an early career in the corporate sector, Drusilla joined Columbia University as Assistant Director of Admissions. There, she helped usher in a new era of recruitment strategy by repositioning the university as a global destination for top talent. Her approach combined storytelling, data, and psychology to reintroduce Columbia as a place where the world’s brightest students could thrive. This success in broadening Columbia’s applicant pool and deepening its evaluation process earned her recognition as one of the university’s most forward-thinking admissions leaders.

She later joined Harvard University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where she served for nearly a decade as Dean of Admissions. At Harvard, she oversaw admissions across more than forty-five departments, managed the school’s financial aid and recruitment operations, and led one of the most successful minority recruitment initiatives in the school’s history. Under her leadership, Harvard’s graduate admissions process became a model for balancing institutional priorities with genuine inclusion and rigor.

Returning to Columbia University, Drusilla was appointed Dean of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid. In this role, she directed admissions and enrollment strategy for Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. She oversaw the integration of their admissions and financial aid offices into a unified, data-driven system. Her tenure coincided with one of the most competitive periods in modern higher education during years that saw record-breaking application volumes and intensifying scrutiny around access, equity, and selectivity.

Today, as the Founder of Deans of Admissions, Drusilla applies this rare combination of institutional insight and strategic vision to guide distinguished families through the college admissions process. Her firm stands at the intersection of education, legacy, and leadership by helping families build lasting relationships with universities and preparing the next generation to thrive within them.

At the heart of her work is a simple but profound belief: education, when approached with intention, is not merely a milestone—it is a legacy.