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+--- Thread: Plan Check: TESU BA CS & Math Double Major (RA Credits & Grad School) (/Thread-Plan-Check-TESU-BA-CS-Math-Double-Major-RA-Credits-Grad-School)
Plan Check: TESU BA CS & Math Double Major (RA Credits & Grad School) - Stimsix - 02-11-2026
Hi everyone,
I'm an 18-year-old high school student from China, and this is my first post here. I've been researching TESU for a while and plan to pursue a BA with a double major in Computer Science and Mathematics.
My Situation:
I plan to transfer most General Education credits from Sophia. However, my long-term goal is to apply for Grad School (Masters/PhD) in the future. Because of this, I am very concerned about having a solid GPA and enough graded RA credits on my transcript, rather than just "Pass/Fail" credits.
The Problem (The 30 RA Credit Rule):
I understand TESU requires 30 RA credits for graduation.
1. I plan to take the 16-credit Flat-Rate Term at TESU to get some graded Upper-Level credits and satisfy the residency requirement.
2. However, this still leaves me with a gap of ~14 RA credits.
3. Since I am an international student with zero prior college experience, I have no RA credits to transfer in.
My Questions:
1. Filling the Gap:
Should I just take a second term at TESU to cover these remaining 14 RA credits? Or is it better to find an online Community College?
My worry: I want to make sure these credits satisfy the RA requirement AND provide a Letter Grade (A/B) for my grad school applications. I heard TECEP exams are RA but only Pass/Fail—is that true? If so, I should probably avoid them for my core major courses, right?
2. The "2-Term" Strategy:
Is it a viable strategy to simply do two terms at TESU (approx. 30 credits total) to cover all the RA requirements?
I was thinking of taking the "hard" courses (like Calculus 3, Linear Algebra, Data Structures) directly at TESU during these two terms. This would give me a real GPA for these core subjects. Is this a common path for people who want to go to grad school later?
I've been trying to plan this out using various tools (and getting confused by Gemin AI chatbox), so I really trust the human expertise here more.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!