I was just kidding about the Cornell in the 80s thing. Good to hear you went to Penn–I hear its reputation took a hit after the whole JoePa scandal though. As for the midterms thing, perhaps I was guilty of precisely the anecdote fallacy that I bemoaned above. All I’ll say is that no doctrinal course in my school, upper- or lower-level, had a midterm or graded homework, and I haven’t heard of any from my friends from peer schools. I don’t think it matters for the purposes of the BTL-or-not discussion.
As for attending unaccredited/”regional” schools, that’s a discussion for another day. I will say that under very limited circumstances I would recommend a “regional” school; I don’t think I would ever recommend an unaccredited school no matter the price.