The new curriculum was discussed extensively on interview day and even more so on second look day. If you were at either or both this year, forgive me for rehashing what you've probably already heard.
Everyone's first concern is whether they'll come out of this curriculum overwhelmed with two years' worth of material crammed into three quarters of that time and unprepared for standardized testing. IMO, that largely depends on the student. I think that a capable student can absolutely get a solid basic science foundation in this amount of time and do well on Step 1 without going crazy. Like others have said, several other schools have successfully implemented similar curricula. And the schools listed are all well-respected schools. Have any of the schools mentioned above suffered in terms of Step averages or residency placements? I honestly don't know, but I would bet that if they had, they would have reverted to their old curricula by now.
So if the concept of the condensed curriculum has been shown to work so far, the next concern should be the implementation at UNC specifically. It's really all about the execution. The Class of 2018 will be the first to experience the TEC curriculum in its entirety, but it is my understanding that the Class of 2017 has had a transitional curriculum, where they've had mostly the old curriculum with a few experimental components added to test out newer things. Keep in mind, a new curriculum doesn't mean that they are starting from square one; they are just changing they way material is taught.
Yes, there will be frustration and growing pains, but the administration is committed to gathering and acting on the feedback of their students. They're experienced educators and administrators. I'm actually kind of excited about diving into systems right away.
