Additional Admission Requirements

1. Unencumbered license as a Registered Nurse in North Carolina
2. BSN degree from nationally accredited program; the RN-to-MSN option is not available to NP applicants
3. Total score of 293 on the revised GRE or 950 on the old GRE with verbal and quantitative portions (Note: the Miller Analogy Test is not accepted.)
4. One year of professional nursing practice in acute or critical care
5. Overall GPA of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale in the last degree and 60 hours of nursing coursework
6. Completion of an undergraduate statistics course with a grade of C or above
7. Statement of Purpose in the application packet explaining the applicant’s career goal in relation to acute/critical care practice.  (Note: Statement of Purpose should not exceed two double-spaced typed pages.)
8. References should be from professional colleagues and should speak to clinical knowledge and expertise and one’s ability to function as a member of the healthcare team.  At least one reference from a supervisory person is preferred.

Application is competitive.  Students are admitted annually in the Fall semester.  See the School of Nursing website at nursing.uncc.edu for application deadline. 

Degree Requirements

The program requires completion of 47 credit hours in approved courses including:

Additional Degree Requirements

1. A minimum of 600 hours of supervised clinical experience as a Nurse Practitioner student is required.
2. Students may receive no more than one C grade in any graduate course. The second C will result in suspension from the program.
3. In order to progress in the specialty, a grade of B or above is required in the following courses:
   • BIOL 6274 - Advanced Human Pathophysiology (3)  
   • NURS 6220 - Pharmacotherapeutics in Advanced Nursing Practice (3)  
   • NURS 6230 - Advanced Health Assessment and Diagnostic Reasoning for Advanced Practice (3)  
   • NURS 6430 - Advanced Health Assessment and Diagnostic Reasoning Practicum (1)  *
   • All required courses with a NUNP prefix
4. Faculty advising is required.

Research Opportunities

Students who choose to do so have the opportunity to serve as Research Assistants on faculty research projects. Students may have an opportunity to choose a mentored research experience in their Synthesis courses.