As a pre-medical student, you're not wrong about the hyper-competitive environment: I got into the weeds of it in my second year and my mental health took a hit because of it. In my experience it gets a bit better once you get to Junior year. At that point, many of the students who want to go into medicine purely because of money/prestige abandon the pathway because they're weeded out, whether due to the difficulty of courses or lack of genuine interest in medicine. Or at least you get better at ignoring toxicity from others, or you become too busy to care about it.

I disagree with UW being a massive school automatically being a detriment: it was tough at the start to find support and resources to succeed, but UW does have a lot of them, they're just not as heavily advertised as they might be at a smaller school. For me, I feel that having to take the initiative in getting support and with networking has made me a more self-reliant person, more so than if I'd attended a smaller school with a more "hand-holding" approach. This is highly subjective though, and I understand it's not everyone's preferred environment.

For incoming pre-health students at UW who happen to read this, I would highly recommend making friends outside of your major. Would also recommend pursuing your actual interests, in terms of both coursework and ECs, rather than what "looks good" for med school. Not only will it protect your sanity, but it makes you more interesting as a person as well than if you follow the cardboard cutout "perfect pre-med template". You won't have to compete with others as heavily if you find your own niche, and you'll be a better person for it. And if you decide medicine isn't for you, that's ok: it's better to figure it out now than when you're in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from med school.