All of that may be true, but the OP’s parents are not wrong: $30,000,000 a year in tax-supported research in the Life Sciences (which is only half their total R&D for the year), is nothing to sneeze at:
https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=report&fice=2133&id=h1
when you consider that Amherst undergraduates have first crack at somewhat less than a million:
https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=report&fice=2115&id=h1
I mean, I get it. The OP will graduate from Amherst completely well prepared for whatever ambitions they may have. That’s what LACs do. They cobble together the know-how; they rise to the occasion; they produce leaders. And, that’s my principal reason for being agnostic between the two choices.