Masters Program FAQs

Graduate nursing school is much different than an undergraduate program in nursing. Graduate programs require you to be highly self-motivated and self-directed. Our faculty and staff are here to provide you with a world-class education from one of the finest nursing programs in the United States. Please realize you may need to make some changes in your professional and personal life to be successful, and we can provide various resources, such as academic success coaching, along the way.

All APRN specialties have clinical requirements. If you are in the Denver metro area, we arrange clinicals for you. You're required to find your own clinical placements if you're outside of the metro (including rural areas) or if you're living out of state.

There are no 'direct' patient clinicals for Veteran & Military Health Care, i-LEAD, and Health Care Informatics programs, however, each has practicum hours to complete.

Most students complete our master's, BS to DNP, post-grad certificate, or DNP in 4 to 5 years. If you need more time, that’s okay, but you need to complete the program within five years.

Most of our students are working in some capacity, but the feasibility depends on several factors, including the specialty, course load, and individual circumstances.

Our indirect care programs – Veteran and Military Health Care, i-LEAD in Nursing and Health Care Systems, and Health Care Informatics – provide the greatest flexibility as they are 100% online.

Our direct care APRN programs are designed to be full-time (2-3 classes per term), and there is limited ability to do them part-time. We suggest you do not plan to work full-time until you get a sense of the rigor and pace of our programs.

We offer two different pathways for the nurse who wishes to become an APRN or enhance their skills and knowledge via one of our three indirect care programs. Our direct care MS pathways are ideal for the BS-educated nurse who wishes to become an APRN in any of our specialties.

The BS-DNP is offered to allow BS-educated nurses the opportunity to not only obtain their MS but also continue to complete their DNP. We offer both APRN options as well as indirect options for those wishing to pursue further education in leadership or informatics. Or you can pause for up to one year before starting the DNP portion of the program.

Starting in Fall 2026, the BS-DNP pathway will be an integrated model where students will take MS and DNP courses concurrently. This means a student will receive an MS and a DNP at the conclusion of the program, and there is no ability to exit one or the other pathway once started. For students uncertain about the DNP, you may choose to complete an MS and then apply for a post-MS DNP program at another time.

Some schools allow students to enter directly into an MS Nursing program without having a BS in Nursing or an RN license. CU does not offer this type of program, and our MS programs require that you have a BS in Nursing. Our indirect care programs require that you have an RN license, but do not require that you have a BS in Nursing. You can have an RN license and a bachelor’s degree in a non-nursing area and be eligible for the indirect care programs.

As you already have an MS in Nursing (non-APRN), you would apply for any of our post-graduate certificate programs. We will review your transcript and relevant syllabi and determine an appropriate plan of study for you. Note that it is common for direct-entry MS in Nursing graduates to take Adv Patho, Adv Pharm, and Adv Assessment in their post-graduate certificate with CU. We do this to make sure you are properly prepared for the rigor of an advanced practice graduate program and the clinicals you will encounter.

Our indirect care programs are 100% online, so there are no on-campus requirements. Our APRN programs usually have some on-campus requirements for didactic coursework. This could range from 3-10 days, depending on the program and pathway. Otherwise, didactic courses are delivered online and usually have synchronous and asynchronous components.