the town! I don't know anything about Amherst College. I like UMass a lot and the city of Amherst, but many graduate students choose to live in Northampton and commute (~20 minutes, unless you get stuck on the bridge). Amherst has that really great "larger" town feel, with not many chain restaurants or shopping malls, but a lot of great local food/commerce/shops/markets with the option to travel to a larger city like boston (~90 minutes) if desired. Oh and Megabus now runs to NYC for usually less than 20 bucks.