The results are in! The U.S. News & World Report has ranked TCU #43 Best Graduate School for its Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program.
An advanced degree in nursing can improve professional skill sets, foster specialization and create opportunities for leadership and clinical roles that often result in higher earnings over time. To help prospective students find the programs that best fit them, the Best Nursing Schools rankings assessed both master’s programs and DNP programs on their research activity, faculty resources, student excellence and qualitative ratings from experts.
Registered nurses who have already earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree are eligible to apply for the Doctor of Nursing Practice program. Harris College offers four DNP pathways:
- Adult-Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner (AGACNP)
- Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP)
- Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP)
- Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) (Pediatric Track)
The U.S. News rankings of 169 DNP programs are based on the 14 distinct ranking factors described below. These scores were standardized so they were compared with the means and standard deviations among all other ranked schools.
Faculty Resources
- Nursing practice: This is the proportion of 2022 full- and part-time faculty members who were in active nursing practice, using the AACN’s definition. A higher proportion scored higher in the ranking.
- DNP degree output productivity: This is the number of DNP degrees awarded per full-time-equivalent faculty member in 2022. More degrees awarded per faculty member scored higher on the ranking indicator.
- Faculty credentials: This is the proportion of 2022 full-time faculty members with doctoral degrees. A higher proportion with doctoral degrees scored higher on the ranking indicator.
- Student-faculty ratio: This is the 2022 ratio of full-time-equivalent DNP students to full-time-equivalent faculty members. A lower student-faculty ratio scored higher on the ranking indicator.
- Percentage of faculty with important academic achievements in the nursing field: This is the proportion of full- and part-time faculty in fall 2022 who were recognized for academic achievements identified by the AACN. A higher percentage of faculty with academic achievements scored higher on the ranking indicator.
Quality Assessment
- Peer assessment score: Nursing school deans and deans of graduate studies at nursing schools rated the quality of accredited DNP programs on a scale from marginal (1) to outstanding (5), and were instructed to mark “don’t know” for schools they did not know well enough to evaluate fairly.
Research Activity
- Total grants: This is the average total dollar amount of grants a nursing school received from the NIH, other federal agencies and nonfederal sources for fiscal years 2022 and 2021.
- Total educational and practical initiative grants: This is the average total dollar amount of educational and practical initiative grants a nursing school received from the NIH and non-NIH sources for fiscal years 2022 and 2021.
- Average of total grants: This is the average dollar amount of grants a school received from the NIH, other federal agencies and nonfederal sources per fall 2022 and fall 2021 full-time-equivalent nursing faculty member for fiscal years 2022 and 2021. A part-time faculty member is treated as one-third of a full-time faculty member for this calculation.
- Average of educational and practical initiative grants: This is the average dollar amount of federal educational and practical initiative grants a school received from the NIH and non-NIH sources per fall 2022 and fall 2021 full-time-equivalent nursing faculty member for fiscal years 2022 and 2021. A part-time faculty member is treated as one-third of a full-time faculty member for this calculation.
DNP Program Size
- DNP degrees awarded: This is the number of DNP degrees awarded to the 2022 graduating class. Schools scored higher on the indicator the more degrees they awarded.
- DNP enrollment: This is the percentage of the fall 2022 total full- and part-time graduate nursing program enrollment that was in the school’s DNP program. Schools scored higher on the indicator the higher the percentage of DNP enrollment.
Student Selectivity
- Mean undergraduate grade point average: This is the mean GPA of full- and part-time students entering a school’s DNP program in fall 2022. Programs with a higher GPA among new entrants score higher on the ranking indicator.
- Acceptance rate: This is the proportion of applicants to a nursing school’s DNP program who were offered admission for fall 2022. A lower acceptance rate indicates greater selectivity and therefore scores higher.
Lead On, TCU Nursing! Lead On!