I’m looking at a very wide range of colleges and attempting to narrow it down. For women’s colleges, I narrowed it down to Mount Holyoke and Bryn Mawr. What are some of the key differences? I don’t need to be in a city, as long as there are just a few coffee shops and that stuff in walking distance, I’m fine. Nothing rural. I’m interested in pursuing pre-med or just biological sciences in general. I also really want a place that feels like a community, ie welcoming and friendly students, collaborative, etc. I am very liberal and slightly into activism, but I don’t want to go anywhere too over-the-top about it. I’d rather be at a liberal, tolerant school that’s more laid back (the activism thing is one of the reasons, among others, that Smith moved down on my list). I know they both have beautiful architecture/campus which is weirdly enough kind of important to me. Lastly, do they both have a lot of horrible weather? I like snow but I’m not a big fan of constant rain. Thanks, and sorry this was so long!
Then you may want to reconsider MHC. 
Then you may want to reconsider MHC. Some people do find to MHC to be rural and isolated. You may want to visit to see how you feel about it.
The services within walking distance of MHC are relatively limited. There is a shopping center, the Village Commons, across the street from campus, and it does have a coffee shop. But if you were hoping for “a few” coffee shops within walking distance, you might be disappointed; there is simply not very much in South Hadley besides the College and the Village Commons. Again, you may want to visit to form your own impressions.
Both are small, but MHC enrolls about 50% more students than BMC. On the other hand, BMC feels larger than it is, because of the proximity and interaction with Haverford College.
Both are involved in college consortiums. MHC’s consortium is much bigger, but more difficult to access because of MHC’s distance from its partner schools. BMC primarily interacts with Haverford College, which is a much quicker bus ride; you can even walk between the two schools.
MHC is located in a cute small town with limited off-campus services; it is not close to any major cities. BMC is located near the downtown area of an affluent suburb, with commuter train service to Philadelphia.
MHC’s more rural location provides better opportunities for outdoor activities like hiking, skiing, and riding. They have an outstanding equestrian center right on campus. BMC’s location is better for big-city entertainment like museums, theater, nightclubs, major-league sports, etc.
At BMC, the old stone buildings are gray. At MHC, they are more reddish.
BMC students are somewhat more likely to major in STEM, MHC students in humanities. But both are strong in both fields.
Any school in the northeastern US is going to get cold snowy weather in the winter, and hot humid weather in the summer. Neither school is noted for unusually bad weather by northeastern standards. MHC is further north and probably gets more cold and snow. BMC is further south and probably gets more heat and humidity; however, you would miss the worst summer weather at BMC since school is out.
I visited MHC and really liked the sense of community. They rank high in best classroom experience.
MHC seemed liberal but not extreme, like places such as Smith and Oberlin.
It is pretty rural and isolated.
The campus is gorgeous.
It has typical northeastern weather. The winters are cold.
I don’t know much about Bryn Mawr, though.
Good luck!
My daughter is a first year at Bryn Mawr so I can help with that. She never considered MHC, so I can’t help you there.
It seems to me that BMC attracts a wide variety of students. I think the only true stereotype is the students are all serious about their academics. My daughter wasn’t sure she’d find “her people” there (she is somewhat of a conservative capitalist), but she has a great group of friends! Everyone is very supportive.
As far as activism and causes, it’s there if you want it, but no worries if you don’t.
I personally find BMC’s location to be excellent. Lancaster Ave is a quick walk away. Easy access to Philly and lots of other schools. Also, PHL airport being fairly close to campus helps if you’re coming in from across the country.
My D is a BMC graduate. We are from Massachusetts and D was not interested I staying in MA. My D had a great experience at BMC. She found course work that was challenging, had excellent faculty mentors, and developed life-long friendships (in fact one of her BMC friends is spending Tday weekend with our family). She took advantage of the bi-co and also took courses at Swarthmore. Everyone of D’s close friends ended up going to graduate school–Yale, Brown, MIT, BU, and Columbia. BMC is one of the LACs that consistently turns out students who go on to doctoral programs, which suggests strong academics. I say visit both schools–physical environment is really different (suburban vs rural). You won’t go wrong with either school.
I applied to both and chose MHC. One of my best friends is at BMC. One thing to note is that MHC gives larger scholarships – I got the max merit aid at both schools and MoHo was way more affordable. If you’re thinking pre med remember that keeping your undergrad affordable is v v important. Both have good programs – I know more about MHC obviously, and we definitely have a good reputation for med school. We also have a reputation for being very collaborative and supportive which was important to me as a girl pursuing STEM. In terms of social activism, it definitely is an important part of both schools (and the Anti trump protests described above happened at both). Tbh I think that manifests more in a sense of respect for all students than any mandatory/militant social justice vibe.
So definitely apply to both! One thing that might be helpful is emailing professors in the department you’re interested in. Maybe try a bio prof whose research looks cool, plus the pre med advisor, and ask questions or ask to be put in touch with a pre med student. One reason I chose MHC was the great response I got from professors and students I reached out to. 
We visited both this summer. Both campuses are fantastic and beautiful. Apply to both and then consider the options once accepted.
I liked BMC a little better. The small town has a bit more going on. It is on the train route to Philadelphia which is very nice. The college consortium is more functional than the one at MHC which is so spread out that it would be time consuming. BMC seems meaningfully intertwined with Haverford which is essentially across the street and also has a beautiful campus. As a parent, I like the easy access to BMC from Philadelphia so the cost and convenience of traveling back and forth is better. From what I could tell, the academics and culture were pretty similar, and seemingly dissimilar from Smith. Just my observation.
I’m a current student at MHC and loving it, so I pretend no objectivity - but here are some thoughts:
MHC is larger (2100); BMC is smaller (1600). BMC is in a suburb-ish town very close to Haverford; MHC is in quite a small town within a short bus ride (~20 min) of a fairly large town with a massive university (UMass). Whether or not you think MHC is “rural” depends on your definition of rural; rural on the east coast is in no way the same as rural in, say, Montana. It’s more like a perpetual low density suburb than rural in the sense of “no people”. South Hadley itself is small town - but it is close to Amherst, and everything on the east coast is quite close together. If you have a friend with a car, which you probably will by your sophomore year, you will be able to spend weekends in Boston if you want to and have the time. The Art History department also runs day shuttles to NYC (the Met, mainly) a few times a semester. They leave early and get back late, and you have to pay something if you aren’t in an Art History class, but they are available. Just to be pedantic, there are, contrary to what is stated above, three available coffee shops - Thirsty Mind in the Village Commons, Rao’s in the library atrium, and Uncommon Grounds (the college coffee shop), in Blanchard Campus Center. I get the point that services are somewhat limited, though - this is true.
I felt the same way about activism on campus - it was a slight negative of MHC to me, but it’s not nearly as pervasive in the school culture as it is at Smith. It’s perfectly possible to not participate if it’s not something you want to be a part of as long as you accept that it’s going to be happening around you.
What’s your baseline for horrible weather? I think the weather in the northeast is pretty awful but I’m coming from lots of sun. It rains regularly but not constantly (for a few days every couple of weeks). If you’re OK with slate grey skies in the winter, you’ll be fine. I doubt the weather will be very different in PA - less snow, comparable rain, somewhat warmer and a bit less dark in the winter - but I’ve never lived there and so I don’t know for sure. Fall is the best season up here - there are some truly gorgeous weeks in the fall which you pay for in January and February when it’s grey and cold.
The premed people at MHC are awesome. They are super helpful, and also lovely. They’re very well informed about your options and what’s needed. When it became apparent that I would need to take a class over the summer due to some issues with scheduling, my premed advisor gave me a list of online possibilities and walked me through the procedure for getting a non-MHC class approved for credit. She’s helped me to work out a plan going forward which will allow me to complete my MCAT in an ideal timeframe. I get at least three emails a week (usually more like 5-7) about new opportunities for research or internships that have come to their attention which we should check out. The whole office is great.
The bio department at MHC is also one of the strongest on campus. If you want to email about the major, the person to look for is Craig Woodard, who’s the current department head. I had him for a class last year and he is brilliant and very helpful. You can also look at the department website (https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/biologicalsciences/people) for a look at the bio professors and their research.
I don’t know a ton about BMC because I decided I wanted a >2000 student body pretty early in the process. It seems like a great school - quite similar in a lot of ways, but with key distinctions. I do think a lot of people would thrive at both schools.
Would just like to point out that I wouldn’t rule out Smith entirely because the activism.
I’m not much of an activist either and neither are my friends. It largely depends on the social circles you run with.
"South Hadley is more like a perpetual low density suburb than rural in the sense of “no people”.
Yes- great characterization! I find it funny when I read on this subforum people saying that South Hadley is rural. When I think of rural, I think-miles and miles of fields/farms, then a university, then more fields. That is not South Hadley. Its a small suburban quiet town, and from MHC you can walk to a small shopping plaza, as mentioned, and there is even a nice restaurant or two in town (walkable from MHC).
Mt. Holyoke appears as one of only three Northeastern colleges in this article on campus aesthetics:
https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/the-25-most-beautiful-college-campuses-in-america
MHC would be a top choice for bio.
On good authority, the students at MCH can be characterized as being primarily conventionally oriented toward academic pursuits.
^ MHC.
Much better list. http://www.bestcollegereviews.org/features/most-beautiful-college-campuses/
Six Northeastern LACs and four Northeastern universities are in the top 25. 
This one considered only smaller colleges and includes both Mt. Holyoke (#18) and Bryn Mawr (#15):
http://www.bestdegreeprograms.org/best-beautiful-small-college-campuses-america
I haven’t visited MHC, but I did visit BMC, which my daughter. Coming from a high-density city, (in case you are too) BMC had virtually no services around the campus. There was one sort of poshish rest near the train station and then a not so amazing family place nearby, which is where we ate pretty eh food. Also a Staples, where we got some supplies. The three coffee shops at MHC sound much better than what the town offers at BMC. I’ve been told that if you have a bike at BMC you can get to other things, but my daughter stood in the “town” of BMC and said: OMG this is going to be my life for four years! My life" as if she was staring at a wasteland. And she liked BMC a lot. I reminded her that Philly was only 20 minutes away by train, which helped her somewhat, but she found the suburban sprawl appalling, even though, as I said, she liked BMC a lot. Just an FYI.
Correction: it should read “which my daughter loved” in the first line.
The town of Bryn Mawr is not so much a college town as it is a suburb with a college located in it. The campus itself it 135 acres. Mount Holyoke’s town of South Hadley has more than 17,000 residents, and the greater Pioneer Valley Region population is over 600,000. Mount Holyoke’s campus, at 800 acres, is considerably larger than that of Bryn Mawr. Both schools offer opportunities for study, culture, social life and shopping in nearby cities/towns and at neighboring campuses.
There aren’t many services immediately adjacent (like across the street) to the BMC campus. However, the campus is a short walk from Lancaster Avenue, a commercial strip with numerous shopping options. I searched for coffee shops on Google Maps near “Canaday Library, Bryn Mawr College”, and got the following hits (all on Lancaster Ave):
- Starbucks, 12 minute walk
- La Columbe Coffee Roasters, 12 minute walk
- Hothouse Coffee, 14 minute walk
- Gryphon Cafe, 19 minute walk
Since this is about the town, I am not including BMC’s two on-campus coffee joints. I am also excluding places on or near Haverford College (although in practice, HC is easily accessible from BMC).
You only get to three at MHC if you include the two on-campus options. If you look at the town itself, you are down to one, Thirsty Minds.
I am not suggesting that the number of local coffee shops or other services should be a deciding factor in a college decision. Plenty of people have great experiences at Williams College, for example, and Williamstown offers fewer services and is more isolated than either South Hadley or Bryn Mawr. But the OP did specifically mention “coffee shops and that stuff in walking distance”. And by that criterion, Lancaster Avenue in Bryn Mawr has a lot more than College Street in South Hadley. Look at both on Google Maps or Google Street View and draw your own conclusions.