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S is still debating--MIT vs. Stanford. So lizbee, did your D consider Stanford? He only has 2 more days to decide... what should he do?
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The issues brought up by lizbee would not be different between MIT and Stanford.
One of my friends decided between MIT and Swarthmore as an undergrad by signing both SIRs, putting them both in the mailbox, and seeing which one she desperately wanted to rip out of the mailbox.
That's the sort of method I'd advocate in the case when a student is stuck between two truly equally excellent alternatives.
EDIT: And I don't mean to be snotty, lizbee. Things do tend to get better after freshman year, when students are taking smaller courses in their departments and starting UROPs in close contact with faculty members. I just think that, all things considered, a professor not assigning readings is not the biggest academic problem in the world, particularly since readings from last semester are available somewhere. This particular case is well-known at MIT, though: 5.111 in the spring is universally panned, and you'll note that in the MIT 2012 forum (and also in previous freshmen fora), those of us who are current or former MIT students have advised people to take 5.111 in the fall rather than in the spring -- it's notoriously worse in the spring. This is one of the only courses that I can think of that's like that.