MIT had the same policy when I was there, and I felt the same way about it: I needed that year to at least get started developing the study habits I didn't have to develop in high school.
I think this makes a lot of sense for a place like MIT. Unfortunately we didn’t have this at UCSD, despite the incoming class having an average 4.1 GPA (and this was a while ago). I think I got an F or a D on my first exam and I freaked out. Had never gotten that my entire life and was used to getting good grades without studying. Was a wake up call. In retrospect, I’m glad that exam was very early on in the quarter.
MIT had the same policy when I was there, and I felt the same way about it: I needed that year to at least get started developing the study habits I didn't have to develop in high school.