UNCW's online RN-BSN: practice experiences, not clinical hours
UNCW's RN-BSN is an online completion program for registered nurses, with 7-week courses, six start dates a year and a finish in as few as 12 months. It asks for practice experiences rather than a set number of clinical hours, which can happen at your current job or, if you are between jobs, in a setting outside work. You need an unencumbered RN license in North Carolina or in the state where you do your coursework.
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Tell us your course, your state and the kind of setting you need near home.
How the online RN-BSN is put together
The RN-BSN is the online option of UNCW's Bachelor of Science in Nursing, open to graduates of associate degree and diploma programs who hold an RN license. Admission is continuous, with six start dates through the year, and every nursing course runs in a 7-week session. UNCW requires no campus visits.
UNCW Online describes the nursing coursework as nine core courses and one elective, 30 credit hours in all. The catalog counts it slightly differently: 27 core credits plus at least 3 elective credits, 24 collateral credits and 34 placement credits, for 88 credit hours of degree requirements inside the university's 124-hour minimum.
Admission asks for a 2.4 GPA, and the ten-year limit on science and math prerequisites does not apply if you have current RN work experience. UNCW says the degree can be finished in as few as 12 months, and the practice experiences are built into that pace rather than added on top of it.
Practice experiences, not clinical hours
The RN-BSN FAQ answers the clinical question directly: "A prescribed number of 'clinical hours' is not required." In place of clinicals, courses build in practice experiences, which UNCW describes as direct and indirect care activities that affect health outcomes.
Where you do them is flexible. According to the FAQ, your present job can host them, and a nurse who is not currently employed may complete them away from any workplace. One limit applies: they cannot be completed online, so each experience involves real people in a real setting even though the coursework is virtual.
UNCW does not publish a course-by-course list of practice experiences. The course descriptions give the best hints. NSG 408 applies the community nursing process in diverse settings, and NSG 484, the capstone in your last semester, draws together your earlier courses and clinical practice. The syllabus for each 7-week course spells out what the experience involves and how you document it.
The RN-BSN course list
Nine required nursing courses carry the degree, with electives filling out the credits.
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
NSG 316 | Professional Nursing Practice for the Baccalaureate Nurse | 3 |
NSG 321 | Gerontological Nursing and the End of Life Care | 3 |
NSG 323 | Health Assessment for Registered Nurses | 3 |
NSG 398 | Health Policy | 3 |
NSG 406 | Leadership and Management in Nursing | 3 |
NSG 408 | Population and Community Health Nursing | 3 |
NSG 415 | Research in Nursing | 3 |
NSG 482 | Pathophysiologic and Pharmacological Evidence Based Nursing Care | 3 |
NSG 484 | Professional Nursing Capstone | 3 (UNCW Online lists 2) |
Electives range from 1-credit options such as NSG 346 Evolution of Professional Nursing and NSG 361 Building a Professional Nursing Career to 3-credit courses in palliative care, complementary therapies, transcultural nursing and genomics. You need a C or better in each nursing course and a 2.00 cumulative GPA to graduate.
Your license and studying from another state
Two UNCW documents set the license rule, and they frame it a little differently. The catalog asks for a current, unencumbered RN license in North Carolina or in the state where you will do your clinical coursework. The RN-BSN Student Handbook ties it to where you live: your resident state's license must be active and unencumbered when you apply and for the whole program. You also attest to an active license to access each 7-week course, and a license that expires or picks up restrictions must be reported to the Associate Director of Undergraduate Programs.
UNCW's online-degree site welcomes RNs from the large majority of states. The North Carolina-only clinical rule that binds UNCW's nurse practitioner students does not apply here; the RN license guide sets the two rules side by side.
A handful of states regulate out-of-state programs that place students in their facilities, and several of those lists do not include UNCW. Our overview of UNCW's online programs for students in other states lists them; read it before you plan a practice experience in another state.
Clearance depends on your practice experiences
The BSN's standard clinical requirements (immunizations, CPR, liability insurance, a negative drug screen, a cleared background check and a seasonal flu vaccine) do not apply to RN-BSN students automatically. The catalog says course practice experiences determine whether they apply.
The RN-BSN handbook does carry a pre-practicum drug screen policy, which calls for a screen before your first practicum experience and annually after that. UNCW has not published a full RN-BSN immunization list or tracking vendor, so if a setting outside your workplace asks for vaccine records or a background check, gather them early and confirm with course faculty what UNCW itself needs to see.
The clinical compliance guide explains the items UNCW uses in its other nursing programs, which is a useful preview of what a host setting may ask for.
When your own job is not the right setting
Doing practice experiences at work is the simplest path, but it does not fit everyone. You may be between jobs, working nights on a unit with little connection to community health, or in a role where a course's experience would be awkward to arrange with your own manager. UNCW's FAQ allows for this: practice experiences can happen outside a work environment.
Setting one up outside work takes some legwork. You need a setting that fits the course objectives, a contact there who agrees to host you, and a clear picture of what the setting asks of visiting students, such as vaccine records or a background check. For a course like NSG 408, that setting could be a health department, a school or a community clinic near home.
Because each course lasts only seven weeks, that search has to start before the course does. A setting found in week three leaves little time to complete the experience itself.
Why RN-BSN students choose us
We make practice experiences outside work simple. Your placement advisor finds a setting near where you live that fits the course in front of you, confirms what that setting requires, and prepares the introduction and details so you walk in expected. UNCW's courses run seven weeks, so speed matters, and our search is built for it.
If your BSN is a step toward advanced practice, that is where our core service does its heaviest work. UNCW's DNP FNP and other nurse practitioner concentrations need an NC or compact RN license, 600 hours of RN experience ahead of the first clinical course, and every clinical hour in North Carolina, with each student responsible for lining up preceptors. We run that search, make the match and build the preceptor submission, finished and checked ahead of UNCW's cutoff. Start with how it works.
Questions UNCW students ask
Do UNCW RN-BSN students need a preceptor?
UNCW's RN-BSN materials set no clinical-hour count and name no preceptor requirement. Each course's practice experience is described in its syllabus, including who oversees it and how you document it. If an experience takes place outside your workplace, expect the setting to want a named contact who agrees to host you.
Is UNCW's online RN-BSN open to nurses in other states?
Mostly, yes. North Carolina residency is not an entry requirement, according to UNCW Online's FAQ. Your home-state RN license has to stay active and unrestricted until you graduate, and a few states add their own rules for out-of-state programs, so check yours before you plan a practice experience there.
Do I ever have to come to Wilmington for the RN-BSN?
No. UNCW states there are no required campus visits for the RN-BSN. Coursework is online in 7-week sessions, and your practice experiences take place where you live or work, in North Carolina or in whichever state issued your license. Before each course opens, you attest that your RN license is still active.
What are the 34 placement credits in UNCW's RN-BSN?
The catalog grants RN-BSN students 34 placement credit hours once they complete NSG 316, Professional Nursing Practice for the Baccalaureate Nurse, a 3-credit seminar. Those credits count toward the 88 credit hours of degree requirements, alongside the nursing core, electives and 24 collateral credits. An advisor can show how your earlier coursework fits the collateral requirement.
Can I go from UNCW's RN-BSN into a nurse practitioner program?
The BSN meets the degree requirement for UNCW's BSN-DNP concentrations, which admit in the fall. You also need an NC or compact RN license, a 3.0 GPA (2.75 considered case by case) and 600 hours of RN practice before your first clinical course. If you have been working as an RN, you may already meet that experience rule; see the 600-hour guide.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-24
We check these pages against UNCW's catalog, handbooks and School of Nursing pages. Your course, your cohort's handbook and UNCW's Graduate Clinical Coordinator have the final word.
UNCW asks you to find your own North Carolina preceptor. Let us run that search.
Tell us your UNCW program, your practicum course and where in North Carolina you can travel. We find preceptors who fit the course and prepare the CV, license and agency details UNCW's Graduate Clinical Coordinator reviews, well before the deadline.
- Preceptors matched to the course: primary care, pediatrics and women's health for
NSGL 650toNSGL 653, adult and older-adult care for AGPCNP, psychiatric care for PMHNP - Preceptor CV with dates and site, license number and agency details ready for your submission
- In Wilmington, the Cape Fear region or wherever in North Carolina your clinicals can happen
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