This is the USAFA forum, and my kid is at USMA, so I want to suggest this as carefully as possible, but USAFA has had a reputation among the big three academies as being the most "casual", for lack of a better term. We know someone whose child is in second year at USAFA, and describe the experience there as quite different than our son's at WP. Having said that, I think all of the academies are far less rigid and "hoo-ha" than they used to be, and old grads would point to many instances of soft discipline, and clear examples of the consequences; poor form during marches being one. I have said to my son a few times that his life would be much different if he attended West Point in the 40's or 50's, than what he is experiencing now. He agrees. He gets upset when "slackers and whiners" get passed through, and don't get called out.
At the risk of sounding real bad for saying this, I do think West Point is at least a bit more serious about discipline than the others, and when we watched the March-on before the Army Navy game in December, the distinction between the form of the USMA Cadets and the "wavy Navy " was more than just obvious. Having said that, there is no shortage of areas for improvement at each of the schools.
My son really enjoyed talking to the exchange students from each of the academies who were at West Point last semester. To the man/woman the all acknowledged that WP was far more hard core in terms of military discipline and training. My son's squad leader was actually a USNA midshipman, and was pretty squared away, but he described the distinction between USMA and USNA by saying USMA was "legit". My point is that all of the academies, in order to best train our young officers to be, need to be very "legit". I like the Napoleon quote at the beginning of the article. Winning wars begins with singing a boot. The details matter, and no one should graduate any of these US military academies without knowing that, and understanding exactly why Napoleon made that statement.