No. Both schools were run by black belts (the gi school by a sixth degree and the no-gi school by a fourth degree), and most of the students were whites and blues, with some purples and browns. The gi school has been around longer and has more high level people (a given class might have a few black belt students), but the vast majority of students in class at either school had less than five years of training.
Having spent three years at the no-gi school and two years at the gi school, the differences are as follows:
The no-gi school emphasized technical mechanics, timing, and detail.
The gi school emphasizes speed, power, and aggression.
The no-gi school emphasized pressure in passing the guard, often on the knees.
The gi school emphasizes speed in passing the guard, often on the feet.
The warm-up at the no-gi school was often technique drills (escapes, submissions, combinations of moves with little to no resistance)
The warm-up at the gi school is calesthenics (running, pushups, burpees, etc)
The average student age at the no-gi school was in the early to mid 30s.
The average student age at the gi school is mid 20s.
There are other things, but I think this gives the idea of it. The really odd thing is that my previous school only had one gi class per week, but I learned more detail about how to do basic collar chokes than similar ranked students at the gi school I go to now.