<p>"branding"? "leverage"? are you kidding me? people... please wake up and smell the coffee. if Cornell wants to be the "C" in HYPMSC it's going to have to actually become a "better" school. no amount of PR is going to get us there. this is the same crap GM and Chrysler tried in the 80s. in the end, the reason Cornell isn't currently the "C" in HYPMSC has nothing to do with its public relations department. PR may be able to sway Cornell's image a few notches in one direction or another, but in the end Cornell's position in the hierarchy of higher education is anchored by actual facts.</p>
<p>the original poster seems to like to talk in business terms. i have no idea how to do this but i'll give it a try: what do universities produce? 1. graduates 2. research/scholarship. *** On average ***, do HYPMS produce higher quality product than Cornell? the short answer is... "yes", regardless of a lot of the spin and self-delusion on this board. for a reality check, i suggest comparing Cornell to HYPMS in the following categories: number of current national academy of sciences members per capita, current faculty Nobel prizes per capita, current Pulitzer prizes per capita, current Fields medals per capita, current average salaries of graduates, rates of admission of Cornell undergrads to top law/med schools -- you get the idea.</p>
<p>if you <em>really</em> want some substantive ideas to make Cornell part of HYPMS here are a few:</p>
<ol>
<li> reduce the incoming class size to 2100 to put the student/fac ratio on par with HYPMS. the opposite approach (adding faculty) is not an option. Cornell is in the middle of nowhere. getting bigger while increasing quality is not going to work.</li>
<li> start spending money on increasing faculty salaries and financial aid to put them on par with HYPMS, instead of the never-ending torrent of new buildings</li>
<li> raise money so you can do these things (the current endowment per capita is pitiful)</li>
</ol>
<p>in response to the original poster, i think marketing colleges separately would only work for AAP, Hotel, and Vet (introduce an undergrad vet program?). these are unique, highly reputable schools with less direct competition from HYPMS. ala Wharton. they could improve Cornell's overall reputation. </p>
<p>and if you really want a "marketing" idea to make HYPMS<em>C</em> a reality: investigate the possible impact of refusing the state contribution to the statutory schools. the idea being to dissolve them, fund them fully privately, or merge them wholly/partially with the other colleges. like it or not, the statutory schools are one of the leading reasons Cornell is perceived as "lower quality" than HYPMS. i am only saying this based on personal experience (i have heard this a lot when Cornell is compared to HYPMS), but "market research" will probably support this. and yeah, these schools are already fully private.. yadda yadda i know, but it doesn't matter. the lower prestige of "public service" schools compared to fully private ones is the reason, for example that it isn't: "HYPMSB", with B being Berkeley. on average, Berkeley's faculty and research are easily HYPMS-caliber, yet look at how it is perceived. the underlying compromise is that for whatever reasons, it is much harder to fill a public institution with the same quality of <em>undergrads</em> as at HYPMS. the public mission has a cost.</p>
<p>you can argue that all this would change Cornell in bad ways too, and you'd be right. "any person any study"? in summary, if you really want to be like HYPMS, be careful what you wish for.</p>