I would agree that Middlebury would be a good addition as would several other academically rigorous LACs that would be likely to come in at the same cost as Yale might have.
The problem with “best of” lists is that they don’t take the applicant’s financial needs into account.
Back in the day Bucknell was a fiction powerhouse, but you don’t hear much about it in that context these days. Philip Roth’s alma mater