actuary thinking about MFE

[EmpireState]

I am from Trinidad and have been working as an actuary for 4 years now. I should have my ASA(Associate of Society of Actuaries) by December. A combination of factors has lead me to want to pursue MFE

1) I have been doing actuarial valuation work in an Insurance company for the last 3 years and I hate it. but it is difficult for me to get another job seeing as i am on a H1B visa
2)I recently got married to a USC and hope to have my green card (or at minimum EAD by December). but the point is, I will be eligible to work anywhere soon
3)Actuaries do investment type work, infact there is an investment track to get your FSA(fellow of society of actuaries). When I look at the curriculum of MFE programs(and even the text books used) it is heavily overlaps with the theoretical investment actuaries are supposed to know(and are tested on)
4) I have always loved programming, VBA,C++, C# ( i did a minor in computer science just to get exposure to programming) AND I have always loved problem solving
5)I am studying for the investment track in Actuarial Science and I love the material

So my questions (assuming I have already answered for myself that I want to be a quant and pursue and MFE) is
a) Since I live in NYC, is there really any difference between Baruch and Columbia. Of course Columbia has the name, but is it an advantage in terms of getting a job.
b) While every case is different, etc etc, what's more or less necessary to get admission into these programs. I know they are competitive


Any advice would be very very helpful

Thanks