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<p>Well, maybe it’s because I like “crunchy-granola small cities” but to my taste Northampton is far and away the liveliest and most interesting college town among these four. Wellesley and Bryn Mawr are in bland upscale suburbs that really aren’t geared toward college students, though you can certainly take care of life’s necessities there. Mount Holyoke is in a tiny village, really a more rural setting; I think the campus is drop-dead gorgeous, especially in the fall, but there’s not much of a town there at all, and a lot of the students go into Northampton or Amherst on weekends because those are livelier towns. (I agree, though, that Wellesley and Bryn Mawr are even prettier, as campuses go). “NoHo” in particular is just teeming with writers, artists, and musicians—unlike the towns of Wellesley and Bryn Mawr which are teeming with stockbrokers, bankers, and corporate lawyers. NoHo also has an extraordinary number and diversity of restaurants for its size, many of them affordable on a college student’s budget. And it’s got a very lively local music scene, something you won’t find much of at the other 3 schools.</p>