Maryville's post-master's DNP: no practicums, one project to place

Who the post-master's DNP is for

Maryville built this pathway for advanced practice nurses and describes it as the DNP degree only. Admission requires an MSN, proof of current APRN board certification, a master's GPA of at least 3.25, a year's professional nursing experience and an unencumbered RN license in the US. The catalog phrases the experience piece as working now as a registered nurse, with at least a year behind you.

The program is 100% online with no campus visits, and Maryville says you can start in spring, summer or fall. Five semesters is the catalog's figure; the DNP page puts the fastest finish at 20 months.

If you also want a new NP specialty, this is the wrong pathway. The DNP with an NP concentration adds a concentration's practicums and 750 clinical hours to the same DNP courses, and it is open to nurses who are not yet certified.

The eleven courses, NURS 700 to NURS 712

Every course in the program carries 3 credits. Four of them move the project forward; the other seven build the methods, quality, leadership, policy and informatics grounding around it.

NURS 703 and NURS 710 exist in the catalog but sit outside the 33 credits. The DNP project courses page walks through NURS 701 and Clinical Inquiry I to III one at a time, including what each asks of your project site.

No practicums, and no published hour total

The catalog's program list has no practicum course, and neither the catalog nor Maryville's DNP pages state a practice-hour total. The DNP page does still invite students to complete clinicals locally in their preferred setting, without saying what those clinicals are or how they are counted. That gap is worth closing early.

The only hour figure on a Maryville site is in a blog post on DNP program length, which treats 500 practice hours as a common minimum across DNP programs. It doesn't present that as Maryville's own requirement. The website also names a NURS 705L in the prerequisite for NURS 706, with no catalog entry behind it, and whether it relates to practice hours is unknown.

Put three questions to your advisor or first-term faculty: whether Maryville expects documented practice time for this degree, how it would be logged and approved, and whether any hours from your MSN apply. Have the answers in writing before you build a project calendar on them.

The project site and the people behind it

Your placement need in this program is a setting where the project can happen. The course descriptions show how much depends on it: the protocol in NURS 701 has to fit a real organization, the IRB work in NURS 705 assumes you know where the project will run, and NURS 706 can't begin until your data is complete. Several people have a part in it.

• You. No Maryville page says who arranges the project site or mentor. The 2023 statement that finding preceptors is ultimately the student's job was made about clinical placements, but plan as if the first ask is yours.
• The host organization. It has to give you access to the process, data and staff the project needs, and it may run its own review alongside the Maryville IRB.
• A mentor at the site. Maryville sets no public mentor rules. Its 2026 preceptor blog quotes a DNP graduate whose preceptor helped create the project, which shows how much a well-placed clinician can shape it.
• Your faculty and Maryville. The protocol goes for approval in NURS 701, to the DNP council by the website's wording and to the department by the catalog's.

Most students here already practice as APRNs, so their own organization is the natural first ask. Before you commit to it, raise two things with faculty: whether running the project at your own employer raises any issue for Maryville, and whether your employer would have to sign an agreement with Maryville of the kind the MOU and affiliation agreement page describes for clinical sites.

Which states the program covers

This DNP doesn't lead to a new license, so Maryville's professional licensure page has no grid for it. The June 2026 grids that flag New York and Louisiana cover the NP programs, not this one.

An older Maryville page on state authorization, dated 2020 in its metadata but still live, rules out New York and Washington students for “our online nursing program” and says Maryville isn't authorized to place clinical practica in New York. Whether that wording reaches the post-master's DNP isn't clear. If you live in either state, or hope to run a project in New York, ask Maryville before you apply.

Your own licenses still matter where the project runs. Maryville's welcome page tells NP-track students their RN license must be unencumbered in whatever state they see patients in. If your project involves patient care in a state other than your own, ask your faculty whether the same expectation applies. The out-of-state clinicals page covers how licensure works across state lines.

What Maryville doesn't publish about this DNP

Beyond the hour question, several parts of the program are unclear from public pages. Your advisor and NURS 701 faculty are the people to ask.

• Mentor qualifications. No public rule on who can mentor a project or sign off on it at the site.
• Project work at your employer. The on-the-clock rule Maryville states is for NP practicums.
• Help with project sites. Maryville describes its preceptor placement assistance in terms of clinical placements; nothing says it covers DNP project sites.
• Projects in another state. No public rule on running the project somewhere other than the state you live in.
• Catalog loose ends. NURS 703, NURS 705L and NURS 725 each raise a question the DNP project courses page sets out.

None of these stops you from starting, but each can change how early you need a site's commitment. Ask in your first term rather than when NURS 701 opens.

Why DNP students bring us their project site search

The post-master's DNP runs on a project site instead of practicums, and finding the right host is a search like any other: it rewards knowing how to approach an organization, who to ask and what Maryville will want to see. Many students host the project where they already work; when that isn't possible, or isn't the right fit, that is when we step in.

A placement advisor finds local organizations with the kind of setting your project needs, approaches a clinician there about mentoring you, and collects the site information Maryville requests, so your talks with NURS 701 faculty start from a real, willing site. The project itself is yours to design and lead with your faculty. Maryville approves the project and any site, and the organization you bring forward has already agreed to host and understands what the project will ask of it. If that fits your situation, tell us your setting and current course through the form below.