<p>Columbia at #4 is a little high if you ask me. I am not sure with two of the HYPSM universities should be ranked below Columbia, but I personally think they are all better, even if only marginally so. However, Columbia makes a very strong case for being ranked between #6 and #9 in the US. I personally rate Columbia right below HYPSM and right alongside Cal, Caltech and Chicago. Schools like Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, JHU, Northwestern etc… fall in the next group, but again, only by the smallest of margins. All of those universities are world class, tier 1 universities and almost indistinguishable from one another in terms of undergraduate academic excellence.</p>