UNCW's Fall 2025 curriculum change: which practicum courses are yours

What UNCW changed, and for whom

The change came with the 2025-26 graduate catalog and covers students admitted under it or any later catalog. UNCW admits DNP students in the fall only, so the Fall 2025 cohort was the first to start on the new sequences. Students admitted before that may remain on the previous curriculum until they finish.

Three things moved at once. FNP and AGPCNP went from three practicum courses to four, with the last one carrying 4 credits and 240 hours. The residency course (NSGL 681) and the single project course taken twice (NSG 699) gave way to three 3-credit project courses, NSGL 696, NSGL 697 and NSGL 698. And the catalog's split of the 1,000 DNP hours shifted from 500 direct patient care and 500 non-patient hours to 750 and 250.

UNCW's FNP preceptor page frames this as a transition rather than a new program: both FNP sequences share the same core learning objectives and the same patient contact hours per course, and the main differences are the course numbers and how the sequence is structured.

How to tell which curriculum you follow

1. Start with your admission termA Fall 2025 or later start places you under the 2025-26 catalog or a newer one, which means the new sequence. UNCW says students admitted earlier may be on the previous curriculum, so an earlier start is a strong hint rather than a final answer.
2. Read the course numbers on your plan of studyYour plan and your registration list the actual practicum and project courses, and the table above settles most cases in a minute.
3. Open the handbook written for your cohortThe DNP Student Handbook 2025-2026 uses the 750 and 250 split and names NSGL 696 as the first project course. The Fall 2025 DNP Immersion and Clinical Hours Handbook still describes the older courses, with 540 clinical and 460 immersion hours, so read it next to your syllabus rather than on its own.
4. Confirm with UNCW when anything differsIf your plan changed after admission, for example a move between full-time and part-time study, ask your advisor or the Graduate Clinical Coordinator which sequence applies before you line up a preceptor.

What the new sequence means for your preceptor search

Four practicum semesters instead of three means one more preceptor agreement to secure. In the full-time plans the four practica run back to back from the spring of year two to the spring of year three, summer included. The final FNP and AGPCNP course asks for 240 hours in one term, which favors preceptors with steady clinic volume and room for a student over a long stretch. Each concentration has its own guide: FNP practica, AGPCNP practica and PMHNP practica.

Some rules carried straight across. UNCW states that the FNP patient encounter minimums apply to every student, whichever curriculum they follow. Others are open: the specialty allowance of up to 80 hours was written for the final course of the old FNP and AGPCNP sequences, and UNCW has not said whether it carries over to NSGL 653 or NSGL 663. The project side moved as well, and the DNP project courses guide covers NSGL 696–NSGL 698 and the site approval that comes with them.