I'm not exactly sure about biostatistics jobs. But in finance, school names carry great weight for master/undergrad level jobs. This is called "target schools". If you are not from "target schools", your resume is placed into trash unless you have some connections in the firm. Even though people laugh at Columbia's master program as a "cash cow" but when I interviewed at banks in NYC, there are always severals students come from there. Some of those guys barely speak English and I suspect they are very good. But they are on equal footing with someone from Stanford, for example, when they got on-site interviews by Columbia name. On the contrary, I rarely see anyone from unknown state schools. It requires a great amount of networking to even get an interview if you go to Pittsburgh, which Columbia name will automatically grant you.
