<p>For full disclosure my D is a junior at Lafayette. She is in the sciences but is not an engineer (she has a number of friends who are engineers). She is super happy at the school in every respect – academically with small classes and close relationships with teachers, socially with a great and ever growing group of friends, extracurricular activity-wise she is very busy doing things she loves and she has found it pretty easy to get leadership positions, and she stayed on campus last summer to do research with a professor for which she was paid and got a nice title (as did a number of her friends in engineering). Friends who graduated have found jobs or started grad school. </p>
<p>To me it looks like the biggest difference is that Lafayette is a LAC which has a strong engineering department and the other two schools are primarily engineering driven schools. Which environment do you prefer? Also it seems like before you apply early you and your dad need to sort it out and he has to be on board. </p>
<p>ED does give a boost to an application, but IMO it is only worth doing if you are 100% sure that one particular school is your top choice school. If you are not certain, don’t apply ED because you don’t want to end up having any regrets or wonder where else you could have or should have gone. If you live nearby maybe there is still time to arrange to visit the school again and shadow a student for a day (go to classes, eat in the cafeteria etc.) before the ED application is due. </p>