A scholar, a leader, and an unusually clear-eyed strategist for the future of education.

Dr. Pardis Mahdavi has spent two decades inside the institutions that students dream of attending — and the rooms where admissions decisions are actually made.

She holds a PhD and two master's degrees from Columbia University, and has served as President of the University of La Verne, Provost and Chief Academic Officer at the University of Montana, and Dean at Arizona State University and the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Affairs. Earlier in her career, as Dean of Women, Department Chair and Professor at Pomona College, she helped shape the culture of one of the country's most selective liberal arts colleges.

Across these roles she has chaired admissions committees, reviewed thousands of applications, set institutional admissions strategy, and advised faculty and staff on what truly distinguishes one applicant from another.

An anthropologist by training and a futurist by inclination, she writes and speaks on the systems shaping work, leadership, and education in the AI era. She is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Young Presidents' Organization, and the author of nine books published by Stanford, Duke, Hachette, Bloomsbury, and Routledge. Her commentary regularly appears in TIME, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and Foreign Affairs.

She founded Threshold Advisory to bring that depth of experience — and the pattern-recognition that comes with it — to a small number of extraordinary students and thoughtful families each year.