well since i just finished 1st year at ub i can only tell you about our program. . . the new curriculum worked great for me. it truly was the best decision i made to come here. matching? we matched well this year, i'm sure upstate did about the same. noless, here's the breakdown on ub. we don't have a ton of lecture time. yeah, semester 1 sucks bcz of gross, but i bet it's true everywhere. basically, it goes like this, we spend 4 hours/day in lecture and pbl or labs. they RIFLE through the info. and i mean RIFLE bcz are lecture time is short. if you want to go to a school where they go slowly and spoon feed you info. UB is not the school for you. if your personality is such that you don't care what they just wizzed through and you're done by noon and go home and go over it all and then really "get" what you just went over then UB is for you. UB really adds a dimention of flexibility to your schedule. it's like the emphasis is on you to learn which means it goes by your hours. again, we aren't "traditional" in the sense you WON'T get long drawn out lectures that really tell you slowly what is important. it's pretty much your job to learn and figure out what is important. now i can't speak for upstate, but our class is very NON-COMPETITIVE which simply means that they never tell you where your position in our class is so overall, everyone is friends and very helpful. there's no reason not to be.
basically, out of my classmates, the ones who are unsatisfied by the new curriculum are the gunners, who really would like to "know" they're doing that much better than you. yes, those people exist in med school, those who get 95% or better and complain that no one failed the renal module. i don't get it. i don't want anyone to fail. . . hmmm . . .
well, hope i helped you figure out the inside of ub anyway . . .