I believe this has been asked many times, but I can’t seem to find a proper answer. Say for example, if someone were to go to a state school for undergrad then to a mid tier UC for grad school, which would matter the most? Wouldn’t it be grades and what you accomplished (extracurricular, job, volunteer, etc)? Do grad schools care where you went (in prestige) or grades/test scores?
And employers don’t mind as much where you went as well, just what you have accomplished?
for starters, what do you mean by “grad school”? A random PhD in a liberal arts subject like history, a professional degree like law or medicine, a MS in a science or engineering? They are not all the same, just like a Ferrari and a Yugo are not the same even though they are both “cars”
@mikemac What about a MS in STEM?
@Dalinar STEM is still too broad a category.
If you mean engineering, that world is flatter than many HS students know. There are elite schools like MIT, Caltech, Stanford and a wide swath in the middle. That’s because undergrad engineering programs are standardized to get ABET acreditation. An engineer from UCLA or Michigan finding herself working with grads from CSU Pomona is not unusual. My recommendation is to go to a school offering a joint BS/MS program in 5 years. There are some 1-year MS programs but IMHO someone with a BS and 2 summers of internship or a semester coop will have better job prospects than someone with an MS and no experience.
For the rest of STEM, the union card is a PhD. Spend a few minutes online and you’ll see there is a glut of PhDs in STEM, which means that employers can readily fill openings with a PhD and so the demand for MS degrees is much less than you might expect.
Pharm.D.
^^^^ now that you’ve narrowed it down to Pharmacy, there is a sub-forum here just for that topic. You are much more likely to have someone informed in the field read your post there than in this thread.
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Say for example, if someone were to go to a state school for undergrad then to a mid tier UC for grad school, which would matter the most? Wouldn’t it be grades and what you accomplished (extracurricular, job, volunteer, etc)? Do grad schools care where you went (in prestige) or grades/test scores?
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Graduate schools do care about where you went, but not in the way you might think. Prestige matters a little but really what matters is the reputation for preparation that your undergraduate college has. Colleges that have good reputations for preparing undergrads for grad school might give their alumni a leg up when they’re applying for grad school - but that field is far wider than most people anticipate. For example, Emory’s graduate programs may be particularly impressed with some local-area Atlanta colleges that other areas aren’t familiar with; or a specific department at Stanford may get a lot of graduates from Lawrence and Wooster for some reason, and admire it; or a professor in a good department may have had two excellent students from Framingham State or Humboldt State and so admires the preparation of that school.
Employers vary all over the map - some care more about the prestige of your undergrad institution than others.
Not necessarily. First of all, “STEM” is too broad. Computer science and statistics PhDs, for example, are in much shorter supply (and harder to hire) than biology or chemistry PhDs; thus, there’s a lot more flexibility in the job market for someone with an MS in computer science or statistics. But even with programs like biology or chemistry, there are many reasons an employer might prefer someone with an MS - they may perceive them as less expensive overall, or the MS may have more non-academic experience, or they may be afraid a PhD will be too eggheaded/unhappy on a team. It’s not simply as black and white as “more education = more opportunities.”
^^what she said 
…and not all STEM fields have gluts- physics, maths, materials science are all in high demand
IMO where you get your undergrad degree is one factor (of many) that will be evaluated when you apply for admission to grad school. And that would not just include the reputation of the undergrad college but it would also encompass the coursework you have taken, any related research you had an opportunity to do, etc.
And perhaps you haven’t received a “proper answer” because nobody on CC woudl presume to speak for every admissions officer in every grad program.
Thank you everyone for the kind answers. So a really good GPA, recommendations, test scores, research is far more superior in admissions for grad school than the reputation of your undergrad?
You probably want to ask about PharmD programs on a pharmacy forum.