UCCS clinical hours, program by program
UCCS nurse practitioner students owe 630 practicum hours if they began the program before Fall 2026 and 770 if they began in Fall 2026 or later, with 45 hours of NURS 6730 added on top of either figure. The planner below splits each program into its clinical courses. The sections after it cover the programs the planner leaves out, the hours that never reach your total, and the older UCCS documents that still print 630.
Plan the hours for your next rotation
Tell us your start term and your next clinical course, and we look for a preceptor who can host that exact number of hours where you live.
NURS 6730 Advanced Health Assessment, counted outside both totals
Pick your UCCS program
Your clinical courses and hours, who can precept you, where, and when to start looking. From UCCS's own catalog and nursing pages.
- Who precepts
- NPs, MDs, DOs or PAs licensed where you do the hours, two years of experience; 200 hours with an NP recommended
- Where
- Primary care in your approved home state; no inpatient or ED hours
- Start looking
- 3 to 6 months before the course; site sheet earlier than the semester before
- Who precepts
- NPs, MDs, DOs or PAs licensed where you do the hours, two years of experience
- Where
- Adult and older-adult primary care, including assisted living and skilled nursing hours
- Start looking
- 3 to 6 months before the course; one Clinical Site Sheet per site and preceptor
- Who precepts
- PMH NPs, PMH CNSs or psychiatrists with full prescriptive authority, licensed where you do the hours
- Where
- Inpatient and outpatient psychiatric settings in an approved state
- Start looking
- 3 to 6 months ahead; adult, geriatric and child rotations each need a fit
- Who precepts
- An institutional mentor who works at the site where your DNP project runs
- Where
- A practice or organization that hosts your quality-improvement project
- Start looking
- Before the project series starts with NURS 8050
- Who precepts
- A site mentor at a community site you secure, approved by UCCS faculty
- Where
- A community or public health setting, not your own unit and not inpatient acute care
- Start looking
- Checklist deadlines: Spring Oct 1, Summer Mar 1, Fall May 1
Your start term decides 630 or 770
The term you entered the program sets your total, not the term you are in today and not your expected graduation. UCCS's 08/2026 practicum handbooks place anyone who began before Fall 2026 on 630 practicum hours and anyone who began in Fall 2026 or later on 770.
The handbooks also change the credit math behind those totals. Each practicum credit carries 45 clinical hours for the earlier group and 55 for the newer one, which is why every rotation in the planner shows two figures.
| Began before Fall 2026 | Began Fall 2026 or later | |
|---|---|---|
| Practicum hours, FNP, AGNP or PMHNP | 630 | 770 |
| Clinical hours per practicum credit | 45 | 55 |
NURS 6730 Advanced Health Assessment | 45, on top of the 630 | 45, on top of the 770 |
| FNP and AGNP handbook | One 08/2026 handbook lists both cohorts | One 08/2026 handbook lists both cohorts |
| PMHNP handbook | The 630-hour edition | The 770-hour edition |
The reasons behind the change, and a course-by-course comparison of the two cohorts, are on 630 vs 770 hours.
Always quote your hour total together with your start term. A clinic told "630" when you owe 770 will plan too few hours for you.
Programs the planner leaves out
The planner has a tab for each MSN track plus the RN to BSN and the Post-Master's DNP. Four more UCCS programs reach clinical hours through one of those routes, and each carries its own detail worth knowing before you plan.
| Program | Clinical hours | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| RN to MSN | The chosen MSN track's 630 or 770, after the bridge | The 6-credit NURS 4460 bridge has no clinical component |
| BSN to DNP | An NP track's 630 or 770, plus 540 DNP experience hours | The DNP Project Handbook (approved 9-11-23) still adds these up using 630 |
| Post-Graduate NP Certificate | The track's clinical courses that your GAP analysis requires | UCCS publishes no separate hour figure for the certificate |
| Traditional and Accelerated BSN | Clinical labs inside campus courses; per-course hours are not published | UCCS assigns these placements in Colorado |
If your GAP analysis leaves NURS 6730 out of a certificate plan, you still receive the badge and Medatrax setup, just timed to your first clinical rotation rather than to that course. Credits, tracks and course lists for each program sit on the programs hub.
UCCS documents that still print 630
Not every UCCS document was rewritten when the 770-hour rule arrived. A student or preceptor who reads one of these on its own can plan around the wrong number.
- The RN to MSN page lists each track as including 630 contact hours, only a short scroll from the notice that the NP program moves to 770 hours effective Fall 2026.
- The DNP Project Handbook dates from 2023 and still puts the BSN to DNP floor at 1,170 hours: 540 DNP experience hours added to 630 clinical ones.
- The Preceptor Handbook (08/2026) gives preceptors both figures for PMHNP students and labels them primary care hours, a label that fits the FNP and AGNP tracks rather than psychiatric rotations.
When these disagree with the practicum handbooks, trust the newest source that fits you, which is the 08/2026 practicum handbook written for your track and start term, read alongside your degree plan. The Graduate Clinical Practicum Coordinator answers anything those two leave open.
Hours that never reach your total
At UCCS, time spent in a clinic and hours that count are two different things. Hours begin to count only after the Academic Services Professional for Graduate Nursing sends your "good to go" email, and only during a fall, spring or summer term in which you hold a course registration.
These hours are not counted
- Time in clinic before both signatures are in place, on the Affiliation Agreement and on your preceptor's letter.
- Hours worked while your paperwork is still being processed.
- Hours before a semester opens or during the break between two semesters.
- Anything past 16 hours spent with a preceptor your processed Clinical Site Sheet does not name.
The full timing rules live on semester rules and incompletes. Setting limits, such as the caps on urgent care or telehealth, differ by track: see what counts for FNP and AGNP and for PMHNP.
What a semester can hold
Fall and spring at UCCS last 16 weeks each, while summer lasts only 8. Your course's hours do not shrink in summer, so the same rotation asks a preceptor for roughly twice the weekly time when it falls in the short term.
That weekly load is what a clinic actually agrees to, and it matters more in a conversation with a preceptor than the program total does. A practice that can host you two days a week across a 16-week fall term may have no room to fit the same course into eight summer weeks. Check your term dates on the academic calendar before you promise any clinic a schedule.
No public UCCS list says which graduate clinical courses are offered in summer. Your degree plan shows where each of your rotations falls, and that is the plan your preceptor search should follow.
Where your hours are recorded
Every patient you see goes into Medatrax, alongside your preceptor's evaluation and the site visitor's report. Those records are UCCS's view of your clinical work in each course, and an incorrect entry can lead to an incomplete grade.
Hours and patient counts travel together. FNP and AGNP students code each visit and must reach a minimum number of encounters in every clinical course, and PMHNP students build toward set numbers of child, adult and older-adult patients by graduation. A rotation that fills its hours with too few patients can still leave you short.
Medatrax also serves you after graduation, since UCCS notes its reports can help verify your hours with certification boards. Codes, encounter minimums and evaluations are covered in the Medatrax logging guide.
Why UCCS students plan their hours with us
We start from your cohort and your course, not a generic hour count. Tell us your start term and the next rotation on your degree plan, and we find a preceptor in your home state who can host the exact hours that course needs, within the weeks the semester allows.
Next we gather what your Clinical Site Sheet needs, from your preceptor's credentials, license and board certification to the site's signing authority and a single exact hour figure. That package reaches UCCS early, so the agreement is underway long before your first clinic day. Should a preceptor drop out midway, we begin searching for the next one immediately. Approval of each site and preceptor stays with the college, and what we send the college is complete on the first submission. Start with the form below.
Questions UCCS students ask
How many clinical hours is the UCCS FNP program?
It depends on when you began. FNP students who started before Fall 2026 complete 630 practicum hours across NURS 6900, NURS 6915, NURS 6925 and NURS 6980, while Fall 2026 and later starters complete 770 across the same courses. Both add 45 hours in NURS 6730. NURS 6982 Pre-Synthesis is not required of every student, and UCCS does not say how its hours fit the total.
Are UCCS PMHNP hours divided the same way as FNP hours?
The totals match, 630 or 770 by start term, but the split is different: three psychiatric rotations, NURS 6801, NURS 6802 and NURS 6803, followed by the NURS 6985 synthesis practicum. PMHNP students also have two separate practicum handbooks, one for each cohort, while FNP and AGNP students share a single handbook that lists both.
Does NURS 6730 count toward the 630 or 770?
No. The 45 Advanced Health Assessment hours sit outside both totals. They must be done in primary care, and the handbook rules out the emergency department, urgent care, skilled nursing and specialty clinics for this course. For PMHNP students, the handbooks list NURS 6730 hours only if the course is on your degree plan.
Does the Post-Master's DNP have clinical hours?
It has 540 DNP experience hours rather than NP practicum hours. Most of them, 450, belong to the NURS 8050 to NURS 8054 project series, and NURS 7200 and NURS 7030 carry 45 apiece. They are completed with an institutional mentor at your project site, typically without direct patient care, logged in Medatrax and audited before graduation.
How many hours is NURS 4450 in the UCCS RN to BSN?
NURS 4450 Public Health Nursing is billed by UCCS as a contact hour course, yet no public UCCS page gives its hour count, so the course faculty are the people to ask. The site is a community setting you secure yourself, approved by UCCS faculty, and it cannot be your own unit of employment or an inpatient acute unit.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against UCCS's catalog, practicum handbooks and college pages. Your degree plan, the handbook for your cohort and the Graduate Clinical Practicum Coordinator have the final word.
UCCS asks you to find your clinical hours where you live. Let us run that search.
Tell us your UCCS track, your next clinical course and where you live. We find preceptors who fit the course and prepare the details your Clinical Site Sheet needs, early enough for the agreement to be signed before the semester.
- Preceptors matched to the course: pediatrics for
NURS 6900, acute and chronic care forNURS 6915andNURS 6925, psychiatric prescribers forNURS 6801toNURS 6803 - Credentials, license, certification and the site's signer ready for the Clinical Site Sheet
- In Colorado Springs, along the Front Range, or in any of UCCS's approved states
Start your placement plan
Your program, city and next clinical semester is all we need to begin.