how much do rankings matter? biostat or in general

[cl27]

I'm struggling with some decisions here - I think what it boils down to is how important or even accurate the program rankings from US news are. Part of this is still hypothetical because not all funding decisions have been made yet, but would you rather go to a school with full funding and stipend ranked 27 or have to pay out of pocket >50k (2 year total) for a school ranked 7? Whenever I look this up, it seems that they say the ranking doesn't matter as much as who your thesis adviser/mentor is and how good their research and reputation is. The problem is I don't know who my thesis adviser would be at either school and both schools have professors doing research that sounds interesting to me. I haven't narrowed down my research interest very much and am open to a lot of possibilities. 

As a side note, this would be for a MS program but I am hoping to end up doing the PhD at the same school. I also am not necessarily planning on becoming a professor - I know that they usually say you can only teach at a school ranked below where you got your PhD from. I'm not really worried about that, I would like to know if it would affect employment opportunities or just general quality of the education and the program. Any thoughts you have about US news rankings would be appreciated!!

[hopeful2020PhD]

Is this for a Biostats MS? It is actually pretty common for MS students in stats and biostats to pay tuition (though I personally know more biostatisticians than pure stats folks, so keep that in mind).

The good news about advisor/mentor match is that you don't need to wait for the school to assign you an advisor. Reach out to faculty at schools you have been admitted to. Ask about their ongoing research, whether there are ways you could get involved with their research, and what that would look like. Use that information to help shape your decision.

Finally, US News rankings are, in my opinion, worthless for graduate school. If you don't want to be a professor, you should be even less concerned with rankings, and more concerned about the strength of the alumni network. Side note, UW (#7 in public health) can be unreliable about funding public health PhDs (speaking from personal experience, and the aggregate experience of my peers), so apply to multiple programs when it is time.