UCCS Post-Master's DNP: 33 credits built around one project
UCCS's Post-Master's DNP is a 33-credit online doctorate for nurses who already hold a master's degree and national certification. It contains no precepted NP clinical courses. Instead you complete at least 540 DNP experience hours, most of them inside a quality-improvement project at an organization where your institutional mentor works, and finding that organization is your first real task.
Find your DNP project site
Describe your project idea and where you live, and your placement advisor looks for a fitting organization and mentor.
Who the Post-Master's DNP admits
Applicants need an MSN, a 3.0 GPA, an RN license from one of the states UCCS approves, and national certification. That last requirement is worded two ways. The 2026-27 catalog asks for certification as an NP or CNS. The program page and the college's DNP overview accept an NP, CNS, CNM or CRNA. If you hold a midwifery or anesthesia credential, get written confirmation from admissions before you apply.
The program page has a second quirk: it prints "a minimum of 70 credits" (the BSN to DNP figure) beside the 33 credits it lists for post-master's students. The catalog confirms 33, and your degree plan fixes your own course list.
Applications are reviewed for spring, summer and fall entry, and the listed dates are January 5, May 5 and August 5. The mandatory first essay wants your plan for obtaining clinical sites that support your career goal, so arrive with an organization, or at least a short list of them, already in mind.
The 33 credits, course by course
The Post-Master's DNP is the BSN to DNP's doctoral core minus NURS 6120, with no advanced practice core and no NP track. Everything is delivered online, and only three groups of courses carry experience hours.
| Course | Title | Credits | DNP experience hours |
|---|---|---|---|
NURS 7010 | Theoretical Foundations of Reflective Practice | 3 | None |
NURS 7030 | Advanced Healthcare Policy, Ethics, and Law | 4 | 45 |
NURS 7070 | Population-based Health Care for Improving the Nation's Health | 3 | None |
NURS 7080 | Clinical Nursing Scholarship for Evidence-based Practice | 3 | None |
NURS 7090 | Health Care Economics and Policy | 3 | None |
NURS 7120 | Evaluation of Clinical Research and QI Projects | 2 | None |
NURS 7200 | Organizational Systems Leadership | 4 | 45 |
NURS 8050 to NURS 8054 | DNP Project I to V | 11 | 450 shared across the five |
The sequence of NURS 7030 and NURS 7200 is left to your degree plan. The project series opens with NURS 8050.
What DNP experience hours are
DNP experience hours are the practice component of the doctorate, and they look different from the NP clinicals you may remember. The DNP Project Handbook notes that they generally fall outside hands-on patient care. They are leadership, policy and project work in a health care organization, guided by an institutional mentor rather than a precepting clinician.
You record these hours in Medatrax, which also holds UCCS's graduate clinical logs, and an audit checks them before graduation, so enter them as you go. UCCS publishes nothing on who arranges the settings for the 45 hours in NURS 7030 and NURS 7200; ask your course faculty early in each course.
The DNP experience hours page covers what counts in each course and how to log it. For a graduate who also wants a new NP population, the Post-Graduate NP Certificate is the UCCS route that carries precepted clinical hours.
Choosing the project site and institutional mentor
The DNP Project Handbook makes the project site your responsibility. The student initiates contact with an institutional mentor in their clinical setting and must secure a written Letter of Cooperation with the outside organization. That mentor has to be working at the site where the project is implemented, which ties your whole project to one organization.
- Pick a problem the site cares aboutA quality-improvement question the organization already wants answered wins a mentor's time far more easily than one imported from outside.
- Secure the mentor and the letterLine up the institutional mentor, then the Letter of Cooperation, before
NURS 8050. That course opens onceNURS 7120,NURS 7010,NURS 7080andNURS 7070are behind you. - Defend the proposal
NURS 8051closes with the proposal defense, held on a Friday in week 14 of the spring term. - IRB, implementation, evaluation
NURS 8052covers IRB review and the start of implementation,NURS 8053the implementation itself, andNURS 8054evaluation and dissemination. - Final defenseThe finished project is defended in spring week 13, on its Friday, by video teleconference.
Grades, time limits and the calendar
Every required course needs a B or better, and the doctorate must be finished within seven years. The UCCS Graduate School accepts a B- in doctoral courses, but the nursing department's grading policy is stricter, and the department's rule is the one that governs your record. The project courses carry a sharper risk than most: a failed project course is retaken the next year, because the series runs on an annual spring rhythm, and a second failing grade at any point ends your enrollment.
Because the defenses are fixed to spring weeks, a delay at the project site can cost a year rather than a semester. An organization that is slow to commit, or a mentor who changes roles partway through, can push the work past a spring window, so the site decision deserves the same care as the project question.
The program is online, and the DNP handbook describes both defenses as held by video teleconference, so no campus travel is built in. Fall and spring run 16 weeks with 8-week sessions, and summer runs 8 weeks; the academic calendar has the 2026-27 dates.
Why post-master's DNP students choose us
The project site is the hardest part of this doctorate to arrange from a distance, and it is the part we are built to handle. Your placement advisor starts from your project question and where you live, searches for health care organizations whose priorities match it, and approaches leaders who can serve as institutional mentors and stay with the project from NURS 8050 to the final defense.
We confirm that the mentor works at the implementation site, explain what the Letter of Cooperation and UCCS's timeline ask of them, and keep you informed at each step so the letter is in hand before the project series begins. If a mentor leaves or an organization withdraws, we begin searching for a replacement at once so your spring defense dates stay within reach.
UCCS's project faculty approve your project and site; we make sure what you bring them is a willing organization, a qualified mentor and a clear timeline. Begin with the form below, or read how it works first.
Questions UCCS students ask
Does the UCCS Post-Master's DNP require a preceptor?
Not an NP preceptor. The program contains no precepted NP clinical courses. Its 540 hours are DNP experience hours, guided by an institutional mentor who works at the organization where your quality-improvement project is implemented. You find that mentor and secure a written Letter of Cooperation from the organization, following the DNP Project Handbook.
Which national certifications qualify for the Post-Master's DNP?
UCCS's sources differ. The 2026-27 catalog lists certification as an NP or CNS. The program page and the college's DNP overview list NP, CNS, CNM or CRNA. If your certification appears only on the second list, ask admissions to confirm your eligibility in writing before you submit an application.
Can I do my DNP project where I work?
The handbook's wording points toward your own clinical setting as the place to find a mentor, and it requires that mentor to work where the project runs. The workplace limits in UCCS's NP practicum handbooks are written for precepted NP hours. Confirm your plan with your DNP project course faculty before you commit to a site.
How long does the UCCS Post-Master's DNP take?
UCCS allows seven years. No fixed semester sequence is published, so your degree plan decides the pace. The project courses anchor the timeline: both defenses are tied to set weeks of the spring semester, so a failed or delayed project course usually moves you back a full year rather than a single term.
Is the Post-Master's DNP fully online?
Yes, according to both the program page and the catalog. The DNP handbook also describes the proposal and final defenses as held by video teleconference. The practice side still happens in person at your project organization, which is why choosing a site near where you live matters.
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
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