Just to elaborate a bit on the helpful info provided by Wayoutwestmom, it is more advantageous to get in to SUNY Upstate medical school through the specific list of private and public universities that have an arrangement with SUNY upstate (when applying to college during senior year in high school) because no MCAT will required to be taken. This is huge!! . In contrast, an MCAT is required and a score of at least 80 percentile (510) is needed —not such an easy task at all—-for students who apply at the end of their sophomore year in college to the Early Assurance program from any public or private university. On the other hand, I think that not being required to take the MCAT will put students at a disadvantage not only for doing as well in medical school but also for when it comes to preparing for Step 1 exam in medical school. Because the 7-hour MCAT exam (shortened your 5 hours during the pandemic) is extremely rigorous and requires learning a lot of supplemental material that may not have been covered adequately in the undergrad science courses. And the MCAT score is a very good predictor of whether a student will be able to be successful in medical school.