We are from San Diego and I have three bright children who all were accepted to their UC’s, along with various top 10 schools.
Yes our eldest purposely accepted admission to SUNY Buffalo because of the NY med school affiliation.
In California, if you attend a UC, you are not guaranteed admission to the UC med schools because there are too many students. The UC med schools want a variety of students from schools throughout the United States.
Our daughter discovered a program through SUNY Buffalo which, if she maintained a high GPA, and was biology focused, she could gain direct admission to one of the upstate New York medical schools.
They don’t have that program anymore because it’s become too competitive from what I understand.
She found that she loved her biomedical classes but she liked the engineering portions. So, she switched to electrical engineering and computer software.
She spent five years in the tundra of Buffalo and yes survived, and liked the weather change!
The school has acrylic tunnels to go from building to building and the dorms have underground bus routes to pick up the students and makeup lit so accommodating that it just becomes the norm you don’t notice the snow.