What should I do with my summer?

[hookemhorns123]

Hello! I’m currently a sophomore pre-med student majoring in Neuroscience and Health and Society. I’m about to start the summer between my sophomore and junior years of undergrad. I’ve been given two opportunities for the summer, and I can only really choose one route to go with. I’ve been pretty torn on this decision for the past few days, so I’d appreciate guidance on what you all think would be the best choice for maximizing my chances of medical school admission.

Route 1
I’ve been accepted as a tour guide for the admissions center of my college. This is something I feel pretty passionate about, since I’ve always loved the idea of welcoming prospective students and families to our campus. It’s a part-time paid position which would allow me to also spend time engaging in clinical volunteering, shadowing positions, and MCAT preparation as well. The only thing is I’m not sure how admirable the tour guide position would look to Med School admissions committees. Additionally, I’d like to continue serving as a tour guide in the Fall and Spring semesters, and in order to do that, I have to serve as a tour guide over the summer per the policy of my school’s admissions department.

Route 2
I’ve also been accepted to a full-time paid research internship in my hometown focused on biotechnology. As a Neuroscience major, this is also something I’m really passionate about since the field of biotechnology is really innovative and can have outstanding implications on human experience. If I take on this role, I would have time to study for the MCAT, but probably not enough time to pursue clinical volunteering and clinical shadowing experiences. I’m pretty sure this opportunity would look great on Med School applications, but the drawback is that it’s really time-consuming. As of now, I’ve had a considerable amount of research experience (in the fields of Family Medicine and Orthopedic Surgery), but these experiences have primarily been virtual and involved going through data-sheets due to the pandemic. This internship would be my first opportunity to engage in true wet-lab research, which I would also like to do.

Does anyone have any advice on how to proceed with this? I’ve honestly been torn over this decision for the past few days, so any guidance would be appreciated. Just for reference, these are how many hours I have in clinical volunteering, shadowing, and research so far

Clinical Volunteering: ~ 180 hours
Clinical Shadowing: ~ 65 hours in Family Medicine and ~ 20 hours in Cardiology
Current Research Experience: Working on qualitative research for a med school's Department of Family Medicine since summer of 2020, and working on clinical research for another med school's Department of Orthopedic Surgery since Fall of 2020. Both of these experiences have primarily involved virtually reviewing data-sets due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thanks in advance!

[P.S. Sorry for asking a second time! I wanted to reach more people to get more opinions.]

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[Grogu]

I'd do the tour guide if I was able to also secure time volunteering in a clinical setting and/or pursuing other leadership opportunities. Being a tour guide means you're activley engaging and speaking with people, that's still a plus. I'm sure the internship might look nice, but you likely won't get a paper or abstract out of a summer internship, and won't be nearly as meaningful compared to spending time being more involved in your community with underserved populations, for example.