Yes, I definitely got this vibe when I visited, and that's why I applied to Stanford (and got in!) and not MIT.
I got there and I asked my host and many of his floormates how they liked MIT and the response from everyone was pretty much "I love it, but there's so much work." And my host (a freshman, which meant he should have been taking fairly easy classes and that he was taking them all pass/no record) talking about spending 8-10 hours on the average PSET for one of his classes didn't help.
I really got the impression that it would be hard for me to find significant time to hack/start a startup, which isn't ok with me.
I got there and I asked my host and many of his floormates how they liked MIT and the response from everyone was pretty much "I love it, but there's so much work." And my host (a freshman, which meant he should have been taking fairly easy classes and that he was taking them all pass/no record) talking about spending 8-10 hours on the average PSET for one of his classes didn't help.
I really got the impression that it would be hard for me to find significant time to hack/start a startup, which isn't ok with me.