Most premeds who show up on day one at college change their career goals and of those who actually apply 60% fail to gain even one acceptance anywhere. Premed is hard everywhere. Weeding is not the norm at these schools because of some designed plan to thin out the herd. Most profs probably don’t know or even care who’s premed or not. College profs just do not hand out As like pez candy as often seen in hs. In fall 2017 approx 480 students were enrolled in Chem 1A (a premed req) at UCSC. I don’t know how many were premed or not, but I suspect few, if any, were there because they said hey I’m going to add a fun or light course to my schedule. Maybe 15% ish got As, most got something lower, probably Cs. This is the kind of competition you will face at both schools and in every course, especially when getting As is very important to one’s career goals.
https://pisa.ucsc.edu/class_search/index.php
How much do you have to pay at both schools.