Long post. Here we go.
Freshman year: Gen Bio had 1200 people in there, a good 600 were all premeds. 400 were pre-pharms, and the rest were pre-OT/PT, pre-dent, etc. Of the 600 premeds, almost all had the mentality that they deserved to go to medical school for taking Gen Bio, Gen Chem, and Cal 1. Their attitudes made me realize I study better alone or with my pre-pharm friends. By the end of the first semester, only a total of 358 undergraduates got a passing grade to go into the second semester gen bio lecture/lab.
Sophomore Year: Orgo Professor asked "who are the chem engineers?" 10 raised their hands. Then he asked "how about other engineers?" A combined 25 hands rose up (because chem engineers are the only engineers that need orgo) and he said "Wow, very good for you guys. Showing initiative!" Then he sighed, asked "And who are the premeds", and nodded in a derogatory way. He then told the premeds (and some pre-pharms) that this was a weed-out course for us. He went on and on about how organic chemistry is the staple of everything life-sciences (medicine, pharmacy, etc.) He, in short, implied that he would make the class harder for the premeds... My chem engineer friends and I actually compared tests and saw we took the same test.
Junior Year: Did research with a national research organization that had professors at our university doing research with said group. Half way through, the professor found me competent enough to work with another undergraduate (premed) and a pharmacy student (lets call him Joe). Joe was very cool to hang out with and even came out with a few friends of mine for drinks several times (I keep in touch with him and hope to work with him one day). The premed however, had some awkward tendencies. He started off not talking to either one of us unless it was about the research. Eventually though he *tried* talking to us. He would try butting into conversations that I would have with Joe or other grad students (there was overlap with Chem grad students that worked on the organic synthesis). It was... weird. His lab coat had his name printed with "[X] Research Group" on it. We only got white lab coats (which was fine, but no one else had that written on their lab coats, even in our research group). So one day Joe and I asked him about it.
Joe: Hey man, that's a pretty cool lab coat, wish I had one.
Me: Yeah man how come you got "[X] research group?"
Premed: Oh my mom made it.
Me: Oh... well uhh...
Premed: I didn't ask her to do it. She just did it. I hope that I can bring it to my medical school interviews though. They might all be impressed!
Joe: Dude... no.
Not to mention, if a female came in to the lab (both in our research group as well as other research groups, random grad students, etc.), he would try making his moves. I think he was tired of being awkward and tried learning how to pick up women (which is commendable; the only way you can do that is practice). But he went about it... all wrong. He would open with a "you're beautiful", which was fine. But if they reacted in any way positive and receptive, he would giggle throughout the conversation as if they were gonna blow him right there for complimenting them. Joe and I tried to help him out but, it was just too hard.
Senior Year: Applying. It was everything: retaking the MCAT, getting LORs (except from my research mentor, she was amazing and really had my back throughout the process), waiting, writing secondaries, proof reading after proofreading the AMCAS app and all my secondaries (had them all critiqued before sending them in). It was hell. The premed from our research group actually got accepted to Northwestern. Good for him. He must've improved his social skills enough to have a great interview. Also, while applying, I made the biggest mistake of telling my mom my email password I used just for applying so she could check for me while I was in class. She texted me 3x a day just to tell me she "didn't find any new emails." Halfway through the interview process, I just changed the password. She was really upset and didn't know why her texting me about nothing was killing me slowly. Also, she would have called my family first before me when I would get in, stealing my thunder.
tl;dr version: premeds do have it hard sometimes. Stereotypes do exist...
