I read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_week and don't see the point of this. It just seems like stressing people out due to poor coordination and time management.
Agreed. In this situation, the individual students have agency over their level of stress during that specific week. It's absurd to make generalizations about the school because a large number of individuals decide independent of one another and of the institution to waste time or to procrastinate.
Dead week? MIT has dead Thursday and dead Friday. There is no week.
It's quite the improvement from last year's Dead Friday (or last winter's dead Thursday with Friday finals.