Colorado clinicals for GW nurse practitioner students
Nothing on GW's State Authorizations page singles out Colorado, and GW's licensure disclosures place the state in the "meets requirements" column for its NP tracks and midwifery. Colorado's board writes its program-approval rule for pre-licensure schools, so what a GW graduate student must line up is a license, a qualified preceptor and GW's own review.
Get your placement plan
Tell us your GW program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your GW course.
Colorado residents and GW's program list
The Acute Care row reflects GW's residency rule rather than anything about Colorado: those clinicals run only in DC, Maryland or Northern Virginia. Because GW's FAQ and an older provost page print shorter or different state lists, rely on the state authorizations page and confirm your program with GW admissions.
| GW program | Open to Colorado residents? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| MSN FNP, AGPCNP, PMHNP | Yes | 600 precepted clinical hours at Colorado sites you identify |
| Post-BSN DNP NP tracks | Yes | The same 600 clinical hours sit inside the DNP total |
| Nurse-Midwifery | Yes | 840 hours across two immersion courses |
| Leadership MSN and MSN/MPH | Yes | Two 150-hour practicums with different preceptors and sites |
| Post-MSN DNP (Nursing Practice) | Yes | 1,000 hours, 500 of them carried from your MSN |
| Post-master's AGPCNP or PMHNP certificate | Yes | The FNP certificate is not admitting |
| Any AGACNP option | No, by residency | Applicants must live in DC, Maryland or Virginia |
What Colorado's board asks of an out-of-state program
Less than many states. The Colorado State Board of Nursing's Rule 1.2 (3 CCR 716-1) covers only basic programs that prepare people for their first RN or LPN license. It is silent on graduate and APRN programs from elsewhere, so the rules show no Colorado approval or notice step for GW's NP tracks.
Two cautions. The Board's website could not be loaded for this research, so guidance outside the written rules went unread. And GW's 2021 clinical placement guide lists state and site requirements among its four clearance items, which makes the Clinical Placement Team the final word on Colorado. The state's student permit is aimed at people from nontraditional schools that lacked supervised clinicals, so it has no bearing on GW students.
Full practice, with a 750-hour mentorship clause
AANP lists Colorado as full practice, with a catch for new NPs: prescriptive authority depends on attesting to 750 hours of mentored experience with a physician or APRN. An NP fresh out of school may still be inside that window, while GW's 2021 guide looks for two years in an advanced practice role. The preceptor requirements page has GW's full list.
Most large systems cluster in Denver-Aurora-Centennial, a metro of roughly 3.1 million in 2025: UCHealth, Denver Health, HCA HealthONE, the CommonSpirit hospitals and Intermountain's Saint Joseph Hospital. Colorado Springs, near 782,000 people, lies south, with Greeley and Fort Collins-Loveland to the north. Students search these markets; none is pre-arranged for GW.
The rural preceptor tax credit stops at the state line
A Colorado income tax credit exists for preceptors who teach without pay in the state's rural and frontier shortage areas, and APRNs can claim it. HB22-1005 extended it through tax years beginning before 2033 and capped it at 300 preceptors a year, but it also confined eligible students to those at accredited schools in Colorado.
A clinician teaching a GW student therefore looks ineligible. Say so up front, then offer what GW itself extends to preceptors: Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library access, a guest-lecture invitation and a network of fellow GW preceptors.
One multistate license for Colorado and its neighbors
Colorado nurses have held multistate licenses since January 19, 2018, when the state's compact membership began. If you live in Colorado, your multistate RN license covers Colorado placements plus those in compact neighbors like Utah and Arizona, which is exactly what GW checks for at clearance. Colorado hasn't enacted the APRN Compact, so NP licensure after graduation will still go state by state; the RN license for clinicals page explains the rest.
How we help Colorado GW students
Your placement advisor searches Denver, Colorado Springs, the northern Front Range and rural Colorado for preceptors who suit your GW course, screens each one against GW's two-year advanced practice profile before you reach out, and prepares the license, bio or CV and agreement signer details for your Site Prospector submission. The program director receives a complete, well-matched package. Share your city and start term on the contact form.
Questions GW students ask
Does Colorado's nursing board have to sign off on GW before my rotation?
Not according to the written rules, which define approved nursing education programs as pre-licensure and say nothing about graduate programs based in other states. Board guidance beyond those rules could not be checked, so let GW's Clinical Placement Team confirm whether your Colorado site needs anything extra.
Can I take GW's Acute Care NP program from Denver?
Not while living in Colorado. GW limits AGACNP admission to residents of DC, Maryland or Virginia, where every Acute Care rotation takes place. Denver applicants usually weigh GW's family, adult-gerontology primary care or psych tracks, all of which train in Colorado with preceptors the student identifies.
Is a Colorado student permit required for GW clinicals?
No. That permit exists for people from out-of-state nontraditional programs without faculty-supervised clinicals who need Colorado hours to get licensed. GW's graduate programs include supervised clinicals, and your RN license is what lets you train at a Colorado site.
Is a Colorado NP with one year of practice an acceptable preceptor?
GW's 2021 clinical placement guide sets two years of advanced practice as the minimum, along with a license that is current and unencumbered. An NP a year into practice may also still be completing Colorado's 750-hour mentorship tied to prescriptive authority. Confirm current rules in your course before you submit that preceptor.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-24
We check these pages against GW's Bulletin and GW Nursing's own program and clinical pages. Your course, CORE and GW's Clinical Placement Team have the final word.
GW asks you to find your own site and preceptor. Hand that search to us.
Tell us your GW program, where you live and which clinical course is next. We find preceptors who fit the course and prepare the license, bio and site details GW's review asks for, so your Site Prospector goes in complete.
- Preceptors matched to the course: family practice for
NURS 6230toNURS 6232, older-adult primary care for AGPCNP, psychiatric care for PMHNP - License, bio or CV and the site's agreement signatory ready for your CORE submission
- Close to home, in DC, Maryland, Virginia or wherever you live and hold your RN license
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