r/premed•
ElkFew6213

CRC or Fulbright for gap year?

☑️ Extracurriculars

Hey! Looking for some advice. I want to apply to Fulbright for worldly experience and because I love research, but I'm worried that a CRC or MA role may be better for my app in my particular case.

Context: at the end of my senior year (time of applying) I will have ~2500 research hours between two academia labs and a a research internship at a major pharma company, with one pub and two pending pubs. I will have ~600 clinical hours between being an EMT and a patient care volunteer at a hospital.

Obviously I have passed the baseline research/clinical hours that you need, but I am worried that my app feels imbalanced, if that's even a thing? Like will adding more research in Fulbright end up being worse for my app then just a CRC or MA job in the states? But also a lot of people on here say projected hours barely count anyway, so should I just do what I want? I don't really know much about med school apps and would love some advice. Thank you!

Posted Jun 11, 2026, 10:29 PM UTC

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