Looking for Rice North!

[Mastadon]

If one uses the Carnegie Classification, one comes up with:

Boston College
Princeton

https://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/lookup/srp.php?clq=%7B%22ipug2005_ids%22%3A%2211%22%2C%22ipgrad2005_ids%22%3A%2215%22%2C%22enrprofile2005_ids%22%3A%225%22%2C%22ugprfile2005_ids%22%3A%22%22%2C%22sizeset2005_ids%22%3A%22%22%2C%22basic2005_ids%22%3A%2215%22%2C%22eng2005_ids%22%3A%22%22%2C%22search_string%22%3A%22%22%2C%22first_letter%22%3A%22%22%2C%22level%22%3A%22%22%2C%22control%22%3A%22%22%2C%22accred%22%3A%22%22%2C%22state%22%3A%22%22%2C%22region%22%3A%22%22%2C%22urbanicity%22%3A%22%22%2C%22womens%22%3A%22%22%2C%22hbcu%22%3A%22%22%2C%22hsi%22%3A%22%22%2C%22tribal%22%3A%22%22%2C%22msi%22%3A%22%22%2C%22landgrant%22%3A%22%22%2C%22coplac%22%3A%22%22%2C%22urban%22%3A%22%22%7D&limit=50&unit_id=227757&start_page=index.php&basic2005=15&ipug2005=11&ipgrad2005=15&enrprofile2005=5&submit=FIND+SIMILAR

If you are willing to accept a more “liberal artsy” skew in the mix of undergrads then you can add:

Brandeis
Brown
Chicago
Dartmouth
Notre Dame
Rochester
Tufts
Wash U

If you consider who the Astronaut Scholarship foundation partners with:

UNIVERSITY PARTNERS
The Astronaut Scholarship Foundation values universities that are ranked amongst the country’s highest rated programs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math with graduate level research opportunities for undergraduate students. With this, the Astronaut Scholarship continues to maintain the level of prestige that has been established since the inception of the organization in 1984.

Mudd
Hopkins
MIT
Tufts
Chicago
Rochester
Wash U
https://astronautscholarship.org/universitypartners.html

If you are interested in access to the latest space imaging data…

Introduction
“How did the Universe start?” … “Will it end at some point?” … “How did we come to exist?” …
These have been fundamental questions about the universe since the dawn of humankind. Surprisingly, we recently found that we know only about 4% of the universe composition. Remaining parts are made of “dark matter”, which has never been detected directly, and “dark energy”, which is much more mysterious negative pressure accelerating the expansion of the universe. What on earth are these “dark” things? How do they exist around us? How have they been acting on the visible entities in the universe such as stars and galaxies?
The Subaru Prime Focus Spectrograph project squarely aims at addressing these long-standing questions. The innovative instrument under development enables us to take exposures of 2,400 astronomical objects simultaneously on such a large patch of sky as several times bigger than the full Moon. Moreover, PFS is a spectrometer. Namely, the lights from stars and galaxies are dispersed and recorded as spectra simultaneously covering a wide range of wavelengths ranging from the near-ultraviolet, through the visible, and up to the near-infrared regime.

https://pfs.ipmu.jp/intro.html

Caltech
Columbia
Tufts
Princeton
Hopkins
https://pfs.ipmu.jp/people.html

https://now.tufts.edu/articles/new-eye-cosmos

If you are interested like minded students and space related extracurricular activities:
Students for the Exploration and Development of Space - (Schools with chapters}

Rice
Brown
Colgate
Columbia
Cooper Union
Hopkins
MIT
Princeton
Tufts
Penn
Yale
Chicago
https://seds.org/public-chapters-list/

All things considered, Princeton might be the closest match, but that is a pretty tough admit.

If you are willing to put up with a more liberal artsy environment, and are truly looking for something small with an undergrad focus, then Tufts could be a good fit - just make sure the theoretical offerings are sufficient, because the physics department is relatively small and Tufts tends to skew toward the applied side at the university level. Tufts does have a longstanding relationship with MIT in the area of Cosmology - which is one of the more theoretical areas - and one of the recent Nobel winners from MIT was previously a prof at Tufts. (Tufts and MIT are about 4 miles apart, with a school that is not to be named halfway in between).
http://cosmos2.phy.tufts.edu/joint-seminar/