DNP Admission Information

Admission criteria

The GRE score is no longer required for RN-MSN, MSN, BSN-DNP and DNP programs.

Individuals seeking admission to the doctoral program through the post-master's point of entry must meet the following requirements:

• An overall GPA of 3.2 on a 4.0 scale. If the overall GPA is less than 3.2, the nursing GPA may be considered;
• A master's degree in nursing;
• Evidence of an unrestricted/unencumbered nursing license as a registered nurse in the United States or one of its territories and eligibility for licensure in the state of Mississippi;
• One year of professional nursing experience required;
• Completion of at least one research course and one statistics course at the undergraduate or graduate level;
• Three letters of reference;
• To be successful in the DNP program, students must be fluent in computer use. Applicants should be familiar with the use of basic computing, including, but not limited to, the Internet, search engines, browsers and instructional computer systems (Canvas), as well as publicly available research databases (PubMed, CINAHL, Psych, etc.).
• If an applicant has been dismissed from any nursing program, one year must pass from date of dismissal to date of eligibility into any UMMC School of Nursing program.

Additional admission Criteria for classes beginning May 1, 2024

• Completion of four statements sharing experiences demonstrating perseverance, service, leadership, and diversity.
• Multiple mini-interviews (MMI) with members of the Admission Committee will be required. The MMI consists of a circuit of interview "stations," each of which provides a ten-minute scenario-based encounter. Each station has a trained rater who is a member of the Interview Subcommittee; therefore, each applicant will be evaluated by several different raters. The station scenarios do not test or access scientific or clinical knowledge; instead, they focus on personal competencies such as oral communication skills, service orientation, respect for other including compassion and empathy, critical thinking and decision making, teamwork, awareness of ethics, maturity, coping skills, and opinions on health care issues. Additional information will be provided to applicants when they are invited to interview. In unusual instances, the Undergraduate Admission and Progression Committee may consider applicants who do not meet the admission criteria.

Additional academic policies and regulations (including those pertaining to admission compliance, orientation, registration and examinations)

Technical Standards for Admission, Progression and Graduation (Technical Standards) are an integral component of the School of Nursing (SON) at the University of Mississippi Medical Center academic requirements that identify core professional nursing competencies in eight specific domains - critical thinking/cognitive competencies, professional relationships, communication, mobility, motor skills, hearing and visual skills, observation and tactile senses. Nursing students must meet all the requirements of the Technical Standards, with or without reasonable accommodations, in order to successfully progress through and graduate from their respective curricula.

International applicants

For applicants who completed coursework or earned degrees from institutions outside the United States, the following criteria must be met.

• Completion of the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) for graduates of foreign schools whose academic language is not English. The minimum TOEFL-Paper Based Test (PBT) score is 550. The minimum TOEFL-Internet Based Test (IBT) score is 79.
• Other documents required by the university, local, state and federal authorities.
• Transcripts must be evaluated in a course-by-course report from World Education Services (WES) at https://www.wes.org/ or the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) at https://www.cgfns.org.