Nursing - Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP)

This certificate will prepare students for national certification as a Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP).

Family Nurse Practitioners provide care to patients across the lifespan. They assess patients, order and interpret diagnostic tests, diagnose and initiate and manage treatment plans, including prescribing medications and health promotion and prevention education and interventions (AANP).

• A master’s degree in nursing from a nationally accredited school (either by the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission (NLNAC), Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN), or Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), with cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher. If practicing/active NP, copy of current APRN certification (AANP or ANCC) is required.

• Active, unencumbered RN license in the state of student’s practice and expected clinical study. License must be unencumbered throughout the entire course of study. If the license becomes encumbered, the student will be dismissed from the program.

• A minimum of one year of active practice as an RN or NP during the last 5 years.

• Letter of intent.

• Letter of recommendation on professional letterhead, including writer’s signature (deferred if Norwich graduate).

• A gap analysis will be conducted for each applicant who has earned a master’s degree in nursing to determine which coursework is necessary for certification in the desired area of practice.

• Guidelines for transfer credit:

  • Norwich University cannot guarantee that pathophysiology, pharmacology, or health/physical assessment courses taken at other institutions will fulfill state or certification body requirements. Applicants are responsible for verifying with the state board of nursing in their intended practice state and the specialty certifying body to ensure that any courses transferred into a Norwich University School of Nursing program meet the necessary requirements for licensure or certification.

  • A syllabus that contains the course description, course objectives, and matches the date listed on the applicant’s transcript for must be provided by the student upon application to the program for each course to qualify for consideration of the award of transfer credit.

  • The applicant must have earned a grade of B or higher for consideration of transfer credit.

  • The following courses must have been completed within the last 7 years for consideration of transfer credit: Advanced Pathophysiology, Advanced Pharmacology, and Advanced Physical Assessment and Diagnostic reasoning. All other proposed courses for transfer must have been completed in the last 10 years.

  • Applicants may refer to the Norwich University Transfer Evaluation System – TES® to determine whether a proposed course has met the requirement for transfer in the past. However, courses may change from time to time and thus are subject to approval by nursing leadership for every application. There is no guarantee that a course listed in the TES® database will still meet the requirements for transfer at the time of application review.

  • To be considered for transfer credit, the proposed course must match at least 70% of the content of the Norwich equivalent course at the time of application.

  • No track-specific courses are eligible for transfer from another institution.