Drexel's post-master's DNP: your Practicum Mentor, prior hours and project

The Doctor of Nursing Practice is fully online and takes about two years. In the 2026–27 quarter catalog it runs 37.5 to 45.0 quarter credits; the 2027–28 semester version is 32.0 to 40.0 credits. Drexel Online lists Fall 2027 as the only start, with classes from August 23, 2027 and a July 1, 2027 application deadline, so new students follow the semester curriculum.

The quarter catalog sorts applicants into two practice tracks: Advanced Clinical Expert, for nationally certified APRNs, and Nurse Executive/Leadership Expert, open to those with certification or 400 or more precepted graduate hours. Applicants also need a US RN license, an MSN (or a health-related master's or an MBA alongside a BSN), a 3.2 graduate GPA and graduate research methods and statistics courses at B or better. Drexel Online says the DNP project can be based on your current work setting, and a dissemination activity follows in year two.

No one graduates with fewer than 1,000 precepted hours earned after the bachelor's degree, counting what you bring and what you add. The hours you bring in are verified by your earlier school on Drexel's Clinical Hours Verification Form, which the catalog calls the CHVF; Drexel Online also asks for a Track Request Form. Your verified total then sets the category or pathway you follow, and the two catalogs draw the lines differently.

Because the thresholds moved from 620 and 400 to 640 and 500, a student near a boundary can land in a different group under each catalog. Ask the DNP program which catalog governs your admission before you count on a pathway. The DNP practicum hours page breaks down the course-by-course hours.

Drexel Online says a doctorate-prepared Practicum Mentor will need to be assigned. The catalog adds that the mentor is required for the practicum-intensive courses and can come from inside your own practice setting or from outside it, and Drexel strongly encourages students to stretch beyond their workplace. Neither page says whether you or Drexel finds the mentor, and neither lists which doctoral degrees qualify, so ask the program early how mentors are identified and approved.

That leaves three questions to settle before your first practicum-intensive course: who in your region holds a doctorate and works in an area that fits your project, whether that person's organization will host the project work, and whether Drexel needs an agreement with the organization. The Department of Advanced Practice Nursing's clinical placement manager covers both the NP and DNP programs, and CNHP Clinical Compliance has a coordinator who handles contracts and compliance for doctoral students; the placement manager page explains who handles what.

• A smaller pool. Doctorate-prepared nurses and clinicians are a narrower group than the master's-prepared preceptors you worked with before, and those with project experience have limited time.
• Beyond your workplace. Drexel encourages practicum experiences outside your current setting, which means approaching organizations where you have no standing yet.
• Practicum and project together. In the quarter plan much of the practicum time sits in the two project seminars, NUPR 782 Planning Practice Change and NUPR 783 Implementing and Evaluating Practice Change, so the mentor's fit has to hold across consecutive terms.
• Unpublished semester hours. The 2027–28 catalog gives no hours per course, so you may be asking a mentor to commit before the time you need is fully known.

Location matters too. Eight states are closed to DNP applicants, among them Alabama, Colorado and Louisiana. Kansas, Minnesota and Oregon, closed to the NP programs, are open for the DNP, and New York residents are admitted without restriction. Washington's approval list doesn't name the DNP, so ask Drexel before planning practicum work there. The state authorization page has the full lists.

In the quarter plan, core practicum hours sit in NUPR 706 Improving Quality and Safety of Health Care Delivery (120), NUPR 707 Health Law and Clinical Practice/Organizational Ethics (20), NUPR 705 Health Policy and Politics (20) and NUPR 805 Leading by Transforming and Partnering (40). NUPR 788 Project Completion carries variable credit and is taken when a project needs more time; the catalog gives it no hours. One plan in the catalog prints 160 hours for NUPR 805; the category totals only add up at 40, so treat 160 as a likely misprint and confirm it.

The semester DNP is built from NURS 5000, NURS 5001, NURS 8000 to NURS 8004, one leadership course, and NURS 9000 and NURS 9001, DNP Project Development I and II. NURS 8005 and NURS 8006 carry the extra practicum for Pathways B and C. The semester conversion page covers the switch across Drexel's nursing programs.

A DNP practicum calls for a different search from an NP rotation, and we run it that way. We start from your project idea and the pathway your verified hours put you on, then look for doctorate-prepared leaders and clinicians near you whose work matches the problem you want to change, inside or outside your current organization. Each approach explains what Drexel asks of a Practicum Mentor and how many terms the commitment spans, so the people who say yes know what they are agreeing to.

Once a mentor accepts, we assemble what Drexel's contracting and compliance teams work from: the mentor's CV and credentials, the organization's contact for any agreement, and its onboarding steps. Drexel approves the mentor and the setting; we make sure your doctoral file reaches Drexel whole and aligned with its requirements the first time it is reviewed. If a mentor has to step back, we are on call to find another with the right background. Tell us about your project through the form here; how it works walks through our process.