<p>The_aspirant, Michigan is on par with Columbia, NU and Penn overall, but its Econ department is slightly weaker than NU’s and Penn’s and like I said earlier, Columbia’s Econ department is hot right now. Had the OP asked about Anthropology, Engineering, History, Math, Political Science, Psychology or Sociology, I would have placed Michigan in the same group at the very least, in some cases higher. Overall, those universities are all definitely top 15 and arguably top 10 in the nation (among research universities).</p>