GW's AGPCNP MSN: adult and older-adult primary care, 600 precepted hours
GW's Adult-Gerontology Primary Care NP MSN trains you in primary care for patients from adolescence through frail old age, with 600 precepted hours over three courses that finish in long-term care. It is 48 credits online, admits in fall and spring, and offers full-time study only from a fall start. GW encourages you to line up your own preceptors, so this guide shows when each one is needed and what the third course asks for.
Map your AGPCNP placements
Share your start term, pace and city. Your placement advisor plans primary care and long-term care preceptors for all three courses.
What the AGPCNP MSN involves
The track shares GW's graduate NP core (population health, leadership, policy, evidence-based practice, biostatistics, advanced physiology, pharmacology and genetics) and then narrows to adult and older-adult primary care. Its shape, from the Bulletin 2026-27, the program page and GW's November 2024 plans:
| Item | GW's figure |
|---|---|
| Credits | 48 |
| Precepted clinical hours | 600 |
| Format | Online, with CLASI, OSCEs and simulation events |
| Start terms | Fall and spring |
| Full-time | Fall entry only, 5 semesters |
| Part-time | 8 semesters from fall, 7 from spring |
| Entry | BSN and an active, unencumbered U.S. RN license |
GW's plan describes the pace in one line: the program "admits in the fall semester with part-time and full-time schedules." A spring start therefore means part-time study.
Finding preceptors for adult and older-adult care
The AGPCNP program page keeps its placement line short, simply encouraging students to secure their own preceptors. Unlike the Family NP page, it leaves out the offer of local site information, though the same GW-wide help still applies. On request, the Clinical Placement Team will send names of sites and clinicians GW students in your state have used before, CORE holds GW's Clinical Site Database, and GW's placement model builds in mentoring on how to approach preceptors.
The approval chain is the standard one. You file each preceptor and site as a Site Prospector request in CORE, your program director checks the fit with the course, and the Clinical Placement Team completes the agreement and your clearance. The clinical placement process page walks through it end to end.
What sets AGPCNP searching apart is the patient mix. Across the three courses you need clinicians who see adolescents and adults, a practice with women's health patients, and, by the last course, older adults in long-term care.
Every AGPCNP plan starts clinicals in summer
NURS 6224 opens the sequence, and on all three posted plans it lands in a summer term:
| Plan | First clinical (NURS 6224) | Then | Total semesters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full-time, fall start | Semester 3, first summer | NURS 6225 in fall, NURS 6229 in spring | 5 |
| Part-time, fall start | Semester 6, second summer | Fall, then spring | 8 |
| Part-time, spring start | Semester 5, second summer | Fall, then spring | 7 |
So the summer request date is the first one every AGPCNP student meets. GW's website lists February 1 for summer clinicals, roughly four months ahead; the request deadlines page sets it beside the CORE workshop's priority dates. NURS 6222, the gateway course, runs the term before NURS 6224. Each plan also carries a note that the program director signs off on preceptor and site details ahead of time, and that some regions come with restrictions.
The three courses and their hours
The course titles tell you the patient focus each preceptor must offer: an introduction to adult primary care, then adolescents and adults, then older and frail adults. The course-by-course view, with GW's 2021 patient-log targets, is on the AGPCNP clinical courses page.
Hours and patients are both tracked in CORE. GW's 2026 CORE session wants a minimum of one logged patient encounter for each clinical hour, and GW's 2021 guide set a target of about 110 patients in NURS 6224, roughly six in an eight-hour day. A preceptor with a steady adult panel makes those numbers straightforward to reach.
| Course | Title | Credits | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
NURS 6224 | Adult/Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner I: Practice Introduction | 4 | 120 |
NURS 6225 | Adult/Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner II: Adolescent and Adult | 8 | 240 |
NURS 6229 | Adult/Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner III: Adult, Older/Frail | 8 | 240 |
Long-term care hours in the third course
The detail that shapes AGPCNP planning most comes from GW's 2021 clinical placement guide. It kept long-term care out of the first course and wrote it into the last. NURS 6224 ruled out urgent care, ED fast track, nursing homes and other long-term care. NURS 6225 covered adult, adolescent and women's health, with up to 100 hours of outpatient specialty care. NURS 6229 required 120 or more hours in a long-term care or nursing home setting, with room for up to 100 hospice or palliative hours.
The guide still sits on GW's servers, unlinked, which means current rules may differ; your NURS 6229 syllabus and Clinical Experience Faculty confirm them. If the rule stands, the third course can mean two placements in one term: a primary care preceptor plus a long-term care one. Each needs its own Site Prospector submission, and any facility GW has not contracted with before needs a fresh agreement, a step the same guide said can run for weeks or months. The rotation settings page lists every course's settings.
Long-term care is excluded from the first AGPCNP course and required in the third, per GW's 2021 guide. Secure the long-term care preceptor well before the NURS 6229 request is due.
OSCEs, CLASI and simulation
CLASI brings you to campus during NURS 6222, before any clinical course begins. OSCEs follow during NURS 6225 and NURS 6229. The program page adds that AGPCNP simulation mixes in-person and virtual sessions built around standardized patients, and all NP students finish with an end-of-program skills assessment.
For 2026-27, GW's events dashboard sets the AGPCNP OSCEs, shared with FNP students, in Ross Hall at Foggy Bottom in October 2026 and February 2027, though GW's FAQ describes on-campus testing as typically held in Ashburn. Exact dates and what to bring are on our OSCE page. On every AGPCNP plan, NURS 6225 runs in a fall term and NURS 6229 in spring, which lines up with those October and February dates. Share them with your preceptors when you set schedules, so the campus days are built in from the first week.
How our placement desk builds an AGPCNP plan
We plan the whole track at once rather than one term at a time. Your placement advisor looks for an adult primary care preceptor near you for NURS 6224, a practice with adolescent, adult and women's health patients for NURS 6225, and both a primary care and a long-term care or nursing home preceptor for NURS 6229, then confirms each can take you in the right term.
For every placement we gather the review packet: license, bio or CV, the name of whoever signs agreements for the site, and a short explanation of why the setting matches the course. Your Site Prospector goes in complete, early enough for a new facility's agreement to finish. If a preceptor withdraws, we go straight to finding a replacement. Every site still passes before GW's program director, and each one we send arrives ready for that review. Start with how it works.
Questions GW students ask
Can I study the AGPCNP MSN full-time from a spring start?
GW's November 2024 plans say no: the program admits in fall with full-time and part-time schedules, and spring entrants follow a seven-semester part-time plan. Spring starters still reach NURS 6224 in their second summer. Plans can change between catalog years, so confirm your options with your advisor before you enroll.
Do urgent care hours count in GW's AGPCNP program?
Not for NURS 6224: GW's 2021 guide kept urgent care and ED fast track out of that first course. Because the guide is no longer linked and may be out of date, check with your Clinical Experience Faculty before listing an urgent care clinic in any AGPCNP request.
Can my long-term care hours be at the facility where I work?
GW publishes no current rule on clinicals at your workplace. In 2017 GW's FAQ told students to look beyond their employer for preceptors, leaving exceptions to their adviser, while today's compliance page lists networking with colleagues at work as a first step. Raise it with your program director before you submit. More on clinicals at your workplace.
How is the AGPCNP MSN different from GW's AGPCNP certificate?
The certificate is for nurses who already hold an MSN and have taken graduate pathophysiology, pharmacology and health assessment. It is 20 credits, uses the same three clinical courses and 600 hours, and starts clinicals in its first semester. See post-master's NP certificates.
Do AGPCNP students need ACLS?
GW's compliance list asks for ACLS only from Acute Care NP students. AGPCNP students need BLS (AHA or Red Cross) and the rest of the Complio checklist: immunizations, background check, drug screen, a physical on GW's form, insurance coverage and RN licensure wherever they rotate.
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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