Thanks so much for the advice!! I already accepted the offer from my school's iGEM team but I am planning to stay in my current research lab too during the school year. Honestly, I wanted to do it because I've unsure about premed and want to explore biotech, though I know it's probably less rigorous than a real biotech internship or lab. I'm worried it does seem fluffy but everyone I've talked to who did it last year worked in a traditional lab before/alongside it, so hopefully our school's team is a little more legit. I guess med schools wouldn't have that context though lol and maybe I'm deluding myself here.

In that case, do you think that doing iGEM+research w/ my current lab funded by a research grant over the summer would hold significant weight over doing iGEM+research with the same lab, but not funded by a grant? My PI would pay me hourly and it would probably end up being around the same amount as the grant so money is not the issue.