I’m sorry, I realized looking over the post I answered very few of your questions! Of the questions I can answer, I can really only answer for Amherst.
As far as safety, I would consider Amherst to have a very safe campus and town. Northwestern is more of a city town (although Evanston is not a large city) so there is probably a bit more crime there but certainly nothing to remark on.
I’m no so sure that there would be job opportunities in Amherst Ma and surrounding areas. However, Boston and NY are both nearby (Boston is about 100 miles away, NY about 150). In Chicago, of course, there should be plenty).
There seems to be a lot of research opportunities and money to pay for them at Amherst, including working at UMass Amherst.
The faculty are very involved with the students at Amherst. It also has a very high graduation rate, excellent placement in graduate programs, and has excellent name recognition among graduate schools. I’m not so sure about other kinds of jobs right out of college (ie, Wall Street). It definitely does not have general name recognition the same way that Northwestern does.
I don’t know much about the neuroscience program at Amherst. Amherst is currently involved in a push to improve its STEM offerings, which might mean they are not considered as strong as at some other places, I don’t know. My D is interested in genetics however, and she is very happy with their biology offerings.
It’s very easy to change majors as well as explore your options at Amherst.
Good luck!