Given that this poster has the brains to get into an Ivy League school and some very specific ideas about his/her interests…I’m confident he/she will get good counsel from people with better insight into particular programs of interest…and weight the pros and cons of either decision. Write some letters, make some calls, talk to people who are doing the kind of work they’d like to do.
To me…“Be safe and get a degree you don’t want” is advice you give to a kid who is sort of a screw up, who doesn’t have a lot of options, whose best shot is completing something…anything.
That’s not who this kid is. This kid has options and a really specific vision of what he/she wants to do.
And s/he’s right. If s/he wants to go to grad school for science, s/he needs a science degree.