Boston College offers 5 Family Nurse Practitioner pathways:
- MSN
- Direct Entry MSN
- RN (ASN) to MSN
- BSN to DNP
- RN (ASN) to DNP
Program Tracks Overview
| Program | Est. Tuition | Est. Duration | Credit Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| MS | $93.7K | Not clearly stated (5-year limit) | 48 |
| Direct Entry MS | $187.4K | 4 semesters pre-licensure, then NP phase (not stated) | 96 |
| RN-to-MS | Not stated | Not clearly stated (5-year limit) | Varies |
| DNP | $142.5K | Not clearly stated (8-year limit) | 73 |
| RN-to-DNP | Not stated | Not clearly stated (8-year limit) | Varies |
Tuition estimates multiply Boston College’s published Connell Graduate School of Nursing rate of $1,952 per credit by each pathway’s published credit total.
Boston College assigns your clinical placement year at the moment you are admitted, and the school itself arranges every rotation. Graduate students move through three to six sites drawn from a roster that includes Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s, Boston Medical Center, Boston Children’s, Beth Israel Lahey Health, Dana-Farber, Fenway Health, and Boston Health Care for the Homeless. For an FNP applicant, that removes the single most common failure point in nurse practitioner education: hunting down your own preceptors.
The trade-off is that the same assignment system controls your pace. Clinical seats are rationed by year, so slowing to part-time during the NP phase depends on a seat being free, and switching to a different NP specialty after admission is neither automatic nor guaranteed.
The Family specialty admits for fall only, everything is taught on the Chestnut Hill campus, and students pay for and provide their own transportation to sites spread across greater Boston, eastern Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.
Quick Facts
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Program Types | MS, Direct Entry MS, RN (ASN) to MS, Post-Baccalaureate DNP, RN (ASN) to DNP |
| Format | Campus. No online or distance option published for graduate nursing. |
| Clinical Hours | 500 minimum (Direct Entry MS); 750 minimum direct care (DNP routes). MS not published. |
| Clinical Placement | School-arranged. Students rotate through 3–6 sites. Placement year assigned at admission. |
| Population | Family, across the lifespan, in ambulatory, community, occupational, and shelter settings |
| Distinctive Coursework | Electives in forensic nursing, global health, genomics, sexual health, palliative care |
| Start Term | Family specialty is fall entry only, even though other NP specialties admit for spring |
| RN License Requirements | Current RN license for BSN-entry MS. Direct Entry students license mid-program. |
| Tuition | $1,952 per credit, same rate for summer and academic year terms |
| Accreditation | CCNE (nursing); NECHE (institutional) |
| Transportation | Students supply their own transport to clinical sites across four-state region |
Master of Science, Nurse Practitioner (Family)
The estimated tuition for the Master of Science, Nurse Practitioner track at Boston College is approximately $93,696 (48 credits at $1,952/credit). The program can generally be completed on either a full-time or part-time basis, with a university limit of five years from first enrollment.
MS Curriculum
This is the standard route for nurses who already hold a BSN or a pre-licensure master’s in nursing. The degree is built as a fixed 48-credit block, the same size Boston College uses for its nurse-midwifery master’s and for the pre-licensure portion of its direct entry programs. That uniformity matters practically: it means the Family specialty is not a longer or heavier master’s than the school’s other NP options, so applicants weighing Family against Adult-Gerontology or Pediatrics at Boston College are choosing on population and clinical placement, not on workload or price.
Where the distinctiveness sits. Boston College does not publish a public course-by-course plan of study for the Family specialty, so the curriculum’s specific sequencing is not verifiable from the school’s website. What the university does document is the elective layer, which is unusually broad for an NP program: forensic nursing, global health, sexual health, genomics, and interdisciplinary palliative care are all offered inside the Connell School, and additional graduate electives are open through other Boston College schools and through the university’s consortium agreements. Connell School international programs can also count toward NP supervised hours, which few FNP programs allow.
- 48 academic credits, full-time or part-time
- Five NP specialties share a common graduate core; Family is one of them
- Electives include forensic nursing, global health, genomics, sexual health, palliative care
- Consortium and cross-school graduate electives available
- International program hours can count toward NP supervised hours
- Minimum passing grade of B- in every graduate course
- Up to 6 transfer credits accepted, excluding clinical and practicum courses
More curriculum details are available here.
You Should Know
- The transfer allowance explicitly excludes clinical courses, practica, Health Assessment, and Advanced Pharmacotherapeutics, so a nurse with recent graduate 3 Ps coursework cannot import it. Approved opt-outs require replacing the credits with electives, which keeps the 48-credit total and the price intact.
- Boston College does not publish the Family track’s course list publicly; it lives in the CSON Graduate Student Handbook. Request it before committing.
MS Clinical Requirements
- Total clinical hours for the BSN-entry MS are not published by Boston College
- Placement is arranged by the school, not the student
- Students rotate through 3 to 6 different clinical sites rather than remaining at one
- Sites include Massachusetts General, Brigham and Women’s, Boston Medical Center, Boston Children’s, Beth Israel Lahey Health, Dana-Farber, McLean, Fenway Health, Joslin Diabetes Center, and the VA Boston Healthcare System
- Community placements include homeless shelters, prisons, school health, community health centers, and visiting nurse associations
- Sites span greater Boston, eastern Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire, and Rhode Island
- Students provide their own transportation
The placement model here is the strongest argument for the program. Most FNP programs, including most online ones, make the student responsible for securing preceptors, and that search is where students commonly lose a semester or more. Boston College does the arranging and spreads students across multiple sites, which produces broader exposure than a single-site rotation and gives graduates a recognizable network of Boston teaching hospitals on a resume. The multi-site design does mean more onboarding, more commuting, and more supervisor relationships to build in a short window.
You Should Know
- No clinical hour total is published for the BSN-entry MS. This is the single most important unpublished number on the page, because national FNP certification requires at least 500 supervised direct patient care hours and most programs land between 600 and 700. Confirm the figure in writing with the Family Primary Care program director before you apply.
- Boston College publishes 500 hours as the minimum for its Direct Entry MS and 750 as the minimum for its DNP routes. Whether the BSN-entry MS sits at 500, 750, or somewhere between is not stated.
- Transportation costs are borne by the student and are not trivial given the geographic spread of sites.
MS Admissions
The Family specialty is the only Boston College NP specialty restricted to fall entry, so the spring application cycle other specialties use is closed to FNP applicants.
- Bachelor’s or master’s degree from a nationally accredited nursing program
- Undergraduate GPA of B or better
- A completed statistics course; AP credit is not accepted
- Current RN license
- Early application for fall enrollment: October 1 for summer start, December 15 for fall
- Regular application for fall enrollment: March 15
- Spring application deadline of October 1 does not apply to the Family specialty
You Should Know
- Fall-only entry means missing the March 15 deadline costs a full year, not a semester.
- Applicants are admitted to a specific specialty and assigned a clinical placement year at that time. Changing specialties later requires a new application to the new specialty, approval from two program directors, and an open clinical seat. Acceptance is not guaranteed.
- Deadlines listed above are recurring annual cycle dates. Verify the current year’s dates with the graduate office.
Direct Entry Master of Science, Nurse Practitioner (Family)
The estimated tuition for the Direct Entry MS-NP at Boston College is approximately $187,392 (96 credits at $1,952/credit, derived across both phases). The program runs four full-time semesters of pre-licensure study followed by an advanced practice phase whose length Boston College does not publish.
Direct Entry Curriculum
This pathway serves career changers who hold a bachelor’s degree or higher in a non-nursing field. It is structured as two stacked degrees in sequence rather than one continuous program.
Phase one: pre-licensure. Four semesters, 48 credits, taken on an intensive full-time basis. Boston College confers a Master of Science at the end of this phase, and graduates sit for the NCLEX-RN. Coursework is the direct entry NURS 7000-series: pathophysiology, clinical pharmacology, adult health, psychiatric-mental health, population health, child health, childbearing, and a synthesis practicum.
Phase two: advanced practice. A further 48 credits of Family Nurse Practitioner coursework, entered only after passing the NCLEX and holding an active RN license.
- 96 total credits across two conferred credentials
- Extensive science prerequisites must be completed before matriculation, not during
- Pre-licensure science prerequisites expire after five years
- Pre-licensure courses carry a stricter academic review trigger than the rest of the graduate curriculum
- All NURS pre-licensure courses must be taken at Boston College
- Two course failures or strategic withdrawals result in dismissal
You Should Know
- Anatomy and Physiology I and II with lab, General Chemistry I with lab, and Microbiology with lab must all have been completed within five years of application. Older science coursework must be retaken at the applicant’s own expense before the program’s price even begins.
- Direct Entry students are barred from the nurse anesthesia and nurse-midwifery programs, both of which require prior RN work experience. If those are live options for you, this is the wrong entry point.
- A grade of C in a pre-licensure nursing course triggers an academic standards committee review, a lower threshold than the B- floor applied elsewhere.
Direct Entry Clinical Requirements
- Minimum 500 direct patient care clinical hours in the advanced practice phase
- Clinical placement year is assigned at the point of admission
- Part-time study during the NP phase requires an available clinical seat
- Pre-licensure phase carries its own separate clinical component
- Same school-arranged, multi-site placement model as the MS track
Five hundred hours is the national certification floor rather than a typical program figure. Most FNP programs build in 600 to 700 or more, so a graduate of this pathway may enter practice with meaningfully less direct patient care time than peers from other programs, on top of having been an RN for a shorter period. Boston College states 500 as a minimum, so actual assigned hours may run higher, but the published commitment is the floor. Weigh that against the pathway’s real advantage, which is that placement is handled for you at a point in your career when you have no professional network to draw on.
You Should Know
- The 500-hour minimum for this pathway is 250 hours below the minimum Boston College publishes for its own DNP routes. Same school, same specialty, different credential, 50 percent difference in guaranteed clinical volume.
- Progression to the NP phase is conditional on good academic standing and RN licensure. Failing the NCLEX stalls the second half of the program.
Direct Entry Admissions
Prerequisite verification is entirely the applicant’s responsibility; Boston College states plainly that graduate program staff will not contact applicants to confirm whether coursework qualifies.
- Bachelor’s degree or higher in a non-nursing field
- Undergraduate GPA of B or better
- Minimum grade of B- (80) in every prerequisite course
- Prerequisites: nutrition, lifespan human development, statistics, Anatomy and Physiology I and II with lab, General Chemistry I with lab, Microbiology with lab
- Lifespan development must cover infancy through older adulthood; single-phase courses are not accepted
- Anatomy and physiology must be human, not comparative or mammalian
- AP credit is not accepted for any prerequisite
- At least three science prerequisites completed or in progress at application is preferred
- All prerequisites must be finished before matriculation
You Should Know
- Boston College publishes its Direct Entry deadlines against the MS-RN track (October 1 early for summer, December 15 regular). Because the Family specialty is fall entry only, confirm which cycle applies to the Direct Entry FNP pathway specifically before you build a timeline around those dates.
- The GRE is described as preferred but not required on the registered nurse track. The source material does not state whether the same applies to the nurse practitioner track.
RN (ASN) to Master of Science, Nurse Practitioner (Family)
Boston College does not publish a tuition estimate for this pathway, because credit hours are determined individually. Duration is likewise unstated, bounded only by the university’s five-year master’s completion limit.
RN-to-MS Curriculum
This route is for associate-degree RNs who want to reach FNP practice without first completing a separate BSN elsewhere. Boston College conducts a portfolio review, then builds an individualized curriculum of classroom and clinical content. Bridge coursework is required before the graduate curriculum begins. Full-time and part-time study are both permitted.
The honest assessment is that this pathway is real but undefined in public. Every number a prospective student needs (credits, total cost, time to completion, clinical hours) depends on a review that happens after you apply. The value is genuine for ADN nurses with substantial prior coursework, who may find the bridge shorter than a full BSN-then-MSN sequence. The risk is equally genuine: at $1,952 per credit, a portfolio review that adds fifteen unexpected bridge credits adds roughly $29,000 to the bill.
You Should Know
- Credit hours, tuition, duration, and clinical hour requirements are all unpublished and portfolio-dependent. Ask for a written individualized plan of study with a credit count before accepting an offer.
- Bridge coursework is charged at the same graduate per-credit rate as the degree itself.
- The Family specialty’s fall-only entry and clinical seat assignment apply to this route as well.
Post-Baccalaureate DNP, Family Nurse Practitioner
The estimated tuition for the Post-Baccalaureate DNP at Boston College is approximately $142,496 (73 credits at $1,952/credit). The program can be completed full-time or part-time, within the university’s eight-year doctoral limit.
DNP Curriculum
This is the doctoral route for BSN-prepared nurses who want the terminal practice degree rather than a master’s. At 73 credits it is 25 credits heavier than the MS, and the difference is not more FNP content. It is systems and leadership content plus a practice change project.
What the extra credits buy. Epidemiology, health care policy for nursing practice leaders, healthcare information technology management, program planning and evaluation for population health, and healthcare quality management, all layered over the same three Ps foundation the master’s uses. The sequence ends in a student-led practice improvement project with an associated practicum.
- 73 academic credits
- Minimum 750 direct patient care clinical practice hours
- Clinical project associated practicum included
- Core coursework shared across all DNP specialties, including nurse anesthesia
- Five NP specialty options; Family is one
- Eight-year completion limit from initial enrollment
DNP Clinical Requirements
- Minimum 750 direct patient care hours, published explicitly
- Additional practicum hours attached to the DNP project
- Same school-arranged, multi-site placement model
- Placement year assigned at admission
At 750 hours this pathway sits above the 600 to 700 range common in FNP education and well clear of the 500-hour certification floor. For a nurse choosing between Boston College’s master’s and doctoral routes, this is the clearest functional difference: the DNP guarantees 250 more hours of supervised direct care than the school’s Direct Entry master’s, and an unknown but likely positive margin over the BSN-entry master’s. On a per-hour basis the doctorate is also the better value, roughly $190 of tuition per guaranteed clinical hour against $375 for the Direct Entry master’s.
You Should Know
- The 750 figure is a floor, not a target. Actual assigned hours may exceed it.
- Clinical project practicum hours are separate from and additional to the 750 direct care hours.
DNP Admissions
Boston College does not publish DNP-specific admissions criteria in the catalog, directing applicants instead to the Connell School’s How to Apply page.
- Baccalaureate degree in nursing required
- Applicants are admitted to a named specialty with a clinical placement year assigned at admission
- Full-time and part-time enrollment both available
- Minimum grade of B- in all graduate coursework
You Should Know
- GPA thresholds, RN experience requirements, and deadlines for the DNP are not published in the catalog. Verify directly with the graduate office.
- Massachusetts and other state boards of registration set their own APRN licensure requirements, which can include clinical hour minimums that differ from a program’s. Confirm your intended practice state’s rules before enrolling, particularly if you plan to practice outside New England.
RN (ASN) to DNP, Family Nurse Practitioner
Boston College does not publish a tuition estimate for this pathway; credit hours depend on individual portfolio review. Duration is unstated, bounded by the eight-year doctoral completion limit.
RN-to-DNP Curriculum
The doctoral counterpart to the RN-to-MS route, aimed at associate-degree RNs who want to reach the terminal practice degree directly. Portfolio review produces an individualized classroom and clinical curriculum, with bridge coursework required before the DNP curriculum proper begins. Full-time and part-time study are both available.
Unlike the master’s version of this pathway, Boston College does publish the clinical commitment here, and it is the most detailed hour breakdown the school provides for any FNP route. That makes this the one portfolio-based pathway where a prospective student can at least verify the clinical volume in advance, even if the credit count and price remain unknown until after review.
RN-to-DNP Clinical Requirements
- Minimum 750 direct patient care hours
- Additional 250 indirect care hours, folded into the DNP project
- 1,000 hours total, of which 750 count as direct patient care
- Same school-arranged placement model and assigned clinical year
Read the 1,000-hour figure carefully. Certification bodies count direct patient care hours, and only 750 of the thousand qualify. A program advertising “1,000 hours” against another advertising “750 hours” may be describing the same direct-care commitment with different accounting. Boston College’s decision to separate the two figures explicitly is a point in its favor.
You Should Know
- Credit hours and total tuition are unpublished and portfolio-dependent, at $1,952 per credit.
- Bridge coursework is required and billed at the graduate rate.
- The 250 indirect hours do not count toward national FNP certification requirements.
Tuition
Boston College charges Connell Graduate School of Nursing students $1,952 per credit. That rate applies to both the 2026–2027 academic year and the 2026 summer session, with no summer premium and no residency differential, since Boston College is private.
| Pathway | Credits | Rate | Derived Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| MS, Nurse Practitioner | 48 | $1,952 | $93,696 |
| Direct Entry MS (pre-licensure phase) | 48 | $1,952 | $93,696 |
| Direct Entry MS (advanced practice phase) | 48 | $1,952 | $93,696 |
| Direct Entry MS (combined) | 96 | $1,952 | $187,392 |
| Post-Baccalaureate DNP | 73 | $1,952 | $142,496 |
| RN (ASN) to MS or DNP | Portfolio-dependent | $1,952 | Not calculable |
Confirmed costs:
- $1,952 per credit, Connell Graduate School of Nursing, 2026–2027 academic year
- $1,952 per credit, 2026 summer session (identical rate)
- Textbooks and course supplies: $1,300 to $2,200 per academic year for full-time students
- Audited courses: half tuition plus fees, non-refundable
Be aware that:
- Every total in the table above is derived by multiplying credits by the published rate. Boston College does not publish program totals for any FNP pathway.
- Boston College’s tuition page states that laboratory and course fees exist and that students taking zero-credit courses still owe mandatory fees, but it does not publish a graduate fee schedule listing those amounts. Your true all-in cost is higher than the derived totals by an amount Boston College does not disclose on that page.
- Boston College states its rates are proposed, subject to change, and adjustable by the Trustees at any time. A four-semester or longer program will almost certainly encounter at least one increase, so multi-year totals are conservative.
- A $150 late payment fee and a $25 returned payment fee ($65 for items over $2,000) apply. Delinquent accounts can be referred for collection with fees of up to 40 percent of the balance, plus court costs and attorney’s fees, and may be reported to credit bureaus.
- Delinquency can trigger withdrawal from the university, transcript and diploma holds, and loss of registration and library access.
- RN-to-MS and RN-to-DNP totals cannot be estimated until portfolio review is complete. Bridge credits bill at the same $1,952 rate.
- Transportation to clinical sites across greater Boston, eastern Massachusetts, southern New Hampshire, and Rhode Island is a student expense and appears in no published figure.
The practical takeaway is that Boston College sits at the expensive end of FNP education and does not soften that with published totals or a transparent fee schedule. A BSN-prepared nurse is looking at roughly $94,000 in tuition for the master’s or $142,000 for the doctorate, before undisclosed mandatory fees, books, transportation, and any rate increases across the years of study. The Connell School directs graduate students toward scholarships, fellowships, grants, assistantships, and tuition remission; those awards are the main lever on this price, and students on academic notice are ineligible for all of them. Boston College’s tuition and fees page is here.
Why Choose This FNP Program?
Best suited for nurses who want a Boston teaching-hospital clinical education without running the preceptor search themselves, and who can commit to being physically present in Chestnut Hill.
The placement system is the product. Boston College arranges clinical placements, assigns your clinical year at admission, and rotates you through three to six sites drawn from Massachusetts General, Brigham and Women’s, Boston Children’s, Boston Medical Center, Dana-Farber, McLean, the VA Boston system, and a deep bench of community health centers and shelters. For FNP students nationally, self-directed preceptor hunting is the most common cause of delayed graduation. Removing it is worth a great deal, and the breadth of the roster gives graduates unusually varied primary care exposure for a family track.
Five entry points into one specialty. Few schools let an ADN nurse, a BSN nurse, a master’s-prepared nurse, and a non-nursing career changer all reach the same Family Nurse Practitioner credential under one roof, at both master’s and doctoral levels. The portfolio-review routes in particular can save an ADN nurse the time and cost of a separate BSN. The catch is that those same routes are the least transparent: credits, price, and duration are all determined after you apply.
The honest trade-offs. Price is the first one. At $1,952 per credit with no published fee schedule, this is among the more expensive ways to become an FNP, and Boston College publishes no program totals to make the comparison easy. Flexibility is the second. Family admits fall only, everything is on campus, clinical seats are rationed, switching specialties after admission is not guaranteed, and going part-time during the NP phase depends on seat availability. The third is the clinical hour question: the school publishes 500 for its Direct Entry master’s and 750 for its DNP routes, but nothing at all for the BSN-entry master’s, which is the pathway most working nurses will apply to. Get that number in writing before you decide.
Accreditation
Connell School of Nursing programs are nationally accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), the accreditor most FNP employers and state boards expect to see. Boston College states this accreditation covers the school’s programs generally, which includes the master’s and DNP nurse practitioner tracks. The Nurse Anesthesia program carries separate COA accreditation and the Nurse-Midwifery program is pre-accredited by ACME; neither applies to the Family Nurse Practitioner pathways.
Boston College itself has been institutionally accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) since 1935, with its most recent comprehensive review in March 2017 and the next scheduled for March 2027. Institutional accreditation is what makes a degree transferable, recognized by licensing boards, and eligible for federal financial aid. Without it, programmatic nursing accreditation alone would not carry a graduate very far.
Graduates of the Family Nurse Practitioner specialty are prepared to pursue national FNP certification through the recognized certifying bodies (AANP or ANCC). Boston College’s catalog names the American Nurses Credentialing Center as an example rather than the only option, so verify with the Family Primary Care program director which exams the curriculum is mapped to before you enroll.
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