University of Tennessee PNP Programs (Pediatric Nurse)

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville offers 4 Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Tracks:

BSN-DNP – Primary Care
BSN-DNP – Dual PC-AC
Graduate Certificate – Primary Care
Graduate Certificate – Acute Care

Program Tracks Overview

Program	Est. Tuition (In-State)	Est. Duration	Credit Hours
DNP – PC	$68.6K / $73.8K	~2.5–3 yrs (8 sem)	68–69
DNP – Dual PC/AC	$79.5K / $85.5K	~3.5–4 yrs (11 sem)	80
Cert – PC	$27.8K / $29.9K	~15 mos (4 sem)	28
Cert – AC	$18.9K / $20.3K	~1 yr (3 sem)	19

UT Knoxville’s defining advantage is range: it is one of the few schools that prepares primary care, acute care, and dual primary/acute care pediatric NPs through a single distance program. It also charges out-of-state students only about $75 more per credit hour than residents, which is unusual for a public university.

Quick Facts

Feature	Details
Program Types	BSN-DNP with two pediatric concentrations; two post-graduate APRN certificates
Format	Mostly Online — live online class sessions plus required on-campus days in Knoxville
Population Focus	Primary Care, Acute Care, and Dual Primary/Acute Care
Clinical Hours	840 for primary care DNP and certificate; 540 itemized for acute care certificate
Clinical Placement	Student-identified, coordinator-approved; placements arranged for Knoxville-area certificate students
Distinctive Coursework	Every specialty term pairs didactic content with a precepted clinical course and simulation
Concentrations	Pediatric Primary Care; Pediatric Primary/Acute Care Dual (BSN-DNP only)
RN License Requirements	Unencumbered RN license in state of residence; APRN license also required for certificates
RN Experience Requirements	None for BSN-DNP; one year acute care experience for the acute care certificate
Enrollment Restrictions	Cannot admit residents of Alaska, Arizona, or California
Clinical Location Rule	Clinical hours must be completed in the student’s state of residence and licensure
Interview	Required for all DNP applicants; essay and interview weighted most heavily
Tuition	Est. $994/credit in-state, $1,069/credit out-of-state (includes $250 nursing differential)
Accreditation	CCNE, through December 31, 2035; university accredited by SACSCOC

Pediatric Primary Care Nurse Practitioner (BSN-DNP)

The estimated tuition for the Pediatric Primary Care Nurse Practitioner concentration at UT Knoxville is approximately $68,586 in-state (69 credits at $994/credit) or $73,761 out-of-state (69 credits at $1,069/credit). The program can generally be completed in about two and a half to three years across eight full-time semesters, including summers.

Pediatric Primary Care Curriculum

How the program is sequenced. The first eighteen months are doctoral coursework, not pediatrics. Year one is population health, evidence-based practice improvement, informatics, and the DNP scholarly project proposal. The three Ps arrive on a staggered schedule — pathophysiology in the first spring, pharmacology in the second fall, advanced health assessment in the second spring — landing immediately before specialty content begins.

Nurses who want pediatric material early will find the front half of this program frustrating; nurses who want the doctoral requirements finished before clinicals ramp up will find the order helpful.

The specialty ladder. Effective Spring 2026, UT replaced the older four-course pediatric sequence (N650–N653) with a twelve-course ladder running N676 through N688. The structure is unusual. Most PNP programs run three didactic courses paired with three clinical courses. UT runs three parallel components in every specialty term: a theory course, a precepted clinical practice course, and either a simulation course or a graded on-campus clinical intensive. That means a student is assessed on the same content three ways in the same term — in writing, in the clinical setting, and in the college’s high-fidelity simulation center.

Unique coursework. The two clinical intensives (N678 and N686) sit in the summer mini and winter mini terms, which is how UT builds required campus days into the calendar without disrupting a full semester. These days cannot be missed, made up, or substituted.

N649 Advanced Pathophysiology
N648 Advanced Clinical Pharmacology
N639 Advanced Health Assessment
N676 / N677 Clinical Decision-Making: Primary Care PNP (with simulation)
N679 / N682 / N687 Primary Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner I, II, and III
N680 / N683 / N688 Clinical Practice: Primary Care PNP I, II, and III
N678 / N686 Clinical Intensive: Primary Care PNP I and II
N681 / N685 Clinical Simulation: Primary Care PNP I and II
N630–N634 DNP Scholarly Project sequence (proposal, immersion, dissemination)
N673 Practice Issues – Nurse Practitioner

More curriculum details are available here.

Pediatric Primary Care Clinical Requirements

Minimum 840 direct patient care clinical hours, effective for students beginning Fall 2024 or later
Counts toward the 1,000 total practice hours required to confer the DNP degree
UT converts one credit hour to 60 clinical or project hours
The math checks: N678 (1) + N680 (3) + N683 (4) + N686 (1) + N688 (5) = 14 clinical credits × 60 = 840 hours
Placement model: students are encouraged to identify their own sites and preceptors, with faculty and staff collaborating; the Concentration Coordinator holds final approval
Clinical hours must be completed in the student’s state of official residence and licensure
Out-of-state clinical placement requires UT to hold state authorization with that state’s Board of Nursing
Exceptions require agreement from the Concentration Coordinator, Graduate Clinical Coordinator, and Assistant Dean of Graduate Programs

840 hours is well above the norm for a single population focus. The Pediatric Nursing Certification Board sets 500 supervised hours as the floor, and most primary care PNP programs land between 600 and 750. UT’s requirement is roughly 40 percent above the middle of that band, and it represents a real increase over the 600 hours this program required before Fall 2024. More hours generally means a more confident new graduate, but it also means more unpaid clinical time and a longer stretch during which working full-time is impractical — UT says so directly. The bigger practical issue is placement. Students find their own preceptors, and pediatric primary care preceptors are harder to secure than adult or family sites because the pool of pediatric practices in any given community is smaller. Layer the residence rule on top and the picture sharpens: you need 840 hours of pediatric-specific clinical time, arranged largely by you, inside the borders of one state.

Pediatric Primary Care Admissions

UT does not require prior nursing experience for this program, which sets it apart from most doctoral-entry NP programs. In exchange, admission is holistic and interview-driven — the College of Nursing weights the applicant’s essay and personal interview most heavily.

BSN or MSN from a CCNE- or NLN-accredited nursing program
Unencumbered RN license in the state of residency
Minimum 3.0 cumulative graduate GPA on a 4.0 scale
Three College of Nursing Graduate Rating Forms; if you finished a program in the last two years, one must come from that program’s faculty
Essay responding to College of Nursing prompts
Interview with the DNP admissions committee
TOEFL 80 (internet-based) or IELTS 6.5 if English is not your native language
Background check, drug screen, professional liability insurance, health insurance, and AHA BLS before enrollment
Cannot be a resident of Alaska, Arizona, or California
Single fall intake; applications open August 1, scholarship-priority deadline January 7, final review date February 15, offers accepted in April
A seat fee is required to hold your place after admission

Two academic policies deserve attention before you apply. UT requires a minimum final course grade of 83 in nursing DNP courses, with a single exception grade of 75–82 allowed in eight named core courses. And the College of Nursing does not permit students to repeat graduate coursework. Combined, these mean there is very little margin for a bad semester.

Pediatric Primary/Acute Care Dual Nurse Practitioner (BSN-DNP)

The estimated tuition for the Pediatric Primary/Acute Care Dual Nurse Practitioner concentration at UT Knoxville is approximately $79,520 in-state (80 credits at $994/credit) or $85,520 out-of-state (80 credits at $1,069/credit).

The program can generally be completed in about three and a half to four years across eleven full-time semesters, including summers.

Dual Primary/Acute Care Curriculum

What the second population adds. The dual concentration carries the full primary care ladder (N676–N688) plus the acute care sequence (N689–N696). At 80 credits it is 12 credits and three semesters longer than the primary care track alone. That is efficient: the standalone acute care certificate is 19 credits on its own, so roughly seven credits of overlap are built into the dual design rather than charged twice.

Acute care content. The acute care sequence moves through three progressive theory courses with matched precepted clinical practice courses, plus a required on-campus clinical intensive (N694). This is where inpatient and critical care management lives — the population UT describes includes children with acute, complex, chronic, and critical illness in PICUs, emergency departments, specialty inpatient units, hospitalist services, and specialty clinics.

Course numbering in transition. The catalog lists both a legacy acute care sequence (N670–N672, in effect before Summer 2027) and the current sequence (N689–N696, starting Summer 2027). Entering students should confirm which numbering applies to their cohort.

N689 Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner I
N690 Clinical Practice: Acute Care PNP I
N691 Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner II
N692 Clinical Practice: Acute Care PNP II
N694 Clinical Intensive: Acute Care PNP
N695 Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner III
N696 Clinical Practice: Acute Care PNP III
Full primary care ladder N676–N688 (see the primary care track above)

Dual Primary/Acute Care Clinical Requirements

The primary care clinical sequence accounts for 840 hours (14 clinical credits × 60)
The acute care clinical courses total 9 credits — N690 (3), N692 (3), N694 (1), N696 (2) — which converts to 540 hours
Fully stacked, that would put the dual near 1,380 direct patient care hours
The 80-credit total implies about 7 credits of overlap, so the real figure may be lower than 1,380
Same placement model and same state-of-residence clinical rule as the primary care track

Dual primary/acute care programs nationally tend to require between 900 and 1,200 clinical hours. If UT’s dual really does stack both sequences, it sits above that range — consistent with the school’s already high single-population requirement, but a significant commitment worth confirming in writing before you enroll. The harder practical question is placement. A dual student needs both pediatric outpatient sites and pediatric inpatient or critical care sites, self-arranged, within one state. Nurses who live near a children’s hospital will find this manageable. Nurses in communities without one should treat the acute care half of this program as the constraint that decides whether it is feasible at all.

Dual Primary/Acute Care Admissions

Admissions requirements match the primary care DNP concentration exactly, and that is the most important thing to know about this track. UT publishes no separate pediatric ICU experience requirement, no acute care RN experience gate, and no prior certification requirement for the dual DNP.

Same eligibility, application materials, interview, and timeline as the primary care DNP concentration
No prior nursing experience required
No pediatric acute care or PICU experience specified
Fall start only; eleven semesters to completion

This is worth sitting with. UT’s acute care certificate requires applicants to already hold national primary care PNP certification plus a year of acute care work experience. The dual DNP requires neither. For a nurse who wants acute care pediatric preparation and does not already have a PNP credential, the dual concentration is the only route into UT’s acute care coursework — and it happens to be the route with no experience gate at all.

Whether that is a feature or a concern depends on your own background; a nurse entering a pediatric critical care track with no bedside pediatric experience is taking on a steep climb regardless of what admissions permits.

Primary Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Graduate Certificate

The estimated tuition for the Primary Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Graduate Certificate at UT Knoxville is approximately $27,832 in-state (28 credits at $994/credit) or $29,932 out-of-state (28 credits at $1,069/credit).

The program can generally be completed in about 15 months across four semesters, beginning in the spring term.

Certificate (Primary Care) Curriculum

The certificate runs the identical specialty ladder used in the DNP concentration — N676 through N688 — with the doctoral core stripped out. There is no scholarly project, no population health or policy coursework, and no leadership sequence. What remains is the full pediatric primary care sequence at the same depth DNP students receive, compressed into four semesters instead of spread across eight.

Three prerequisite courses must be complete within the previous five years, and UT enforces this even for actively practicing APRNs: advanced health assessment, advanced clinical pharmacology, and advanced pathophysiology. Applicants can complete these at UT as non-degree students, but only in a separate application cycle — which effectively adds a year for anyone whose coursework has aged out.

N676 / N677 Clinical Decision-Making: Primary Care PNP and simulation
N678 Clinical Intensive: Primary Care PNP I
N679 / N680 / N681 Primary Care PNP I with clinical practice and simulation
N682 / N683 / N685 Primary Care PNP II with clinical practice and simulation
N686 Clinical Intensive: Primary Care PNP II
N687 / N688 Primary Care PNP III with clinical practice

More curriculum details are available here.

Certificate (Primary Care) Clinical Requirements

Minimum 840 direct patient care clinical hours, effective Spring 2026
Clinical credits: N678 (1) + N680 (3) + N683 (4) + winter mini intensive (1) + N688 (5) = 14 credits × 60 = 840 hours
Knoxville-area students are offered verified clinical site placements arranged by the student, Concentration Coordinator, and Graduate Clinical Coordinator together
Students elsewhere in Tennessee receive placement assistance and preceptor verification
Out-of-state students receive best-effort support, but UT states it may be unable to accommodate placements in some states
Clinical practicum must occur in the student’s state of official residence and licensure
Certificates must be completed within two years

This is the number that should drive your decision. Most post-master’s PNP certificates require 500 to 600 hours, on the reasoning that an already-certified APRN brings transferable clinical experience. UT requires 840 — the same as its DNP students, with no reduction for prior practice. For a working APRN, that is roughly seven months of full-time clinical equivalent added to an existing career. The trade-off is real preparation depth rather than a minimum-viable credential, and the tiered placement support is a genuine advantage if you live in or near Knoxville. If you live out of state, read UT’s own language carefully: it commits to effort, not outcome.

Certificate (Primary Care) Admissions

This certificate is for practicing APRNs adding a population focus, not for RNs entering advanced practice. You must already hold both an APRN license and current national certification in another population.

MSN, MS in nursing, or DNP from a CCNE- or NLN CNEA-accredited program
Unencumbered RN license and APRN license in the state of residency and clinical placement
Current national certification in a specified APRN population focus
Advanced health assessment, advanced pharmacology, and advanced pathophysiology completed within the previous five years
Essay responding to College of Nursing Graduate Program prompts
Two references from nursing faculty, supervisors, or providers holding a master’s degree or higher
Spring start only
Cannot be a resident of Alaska, Arizona, or California

One financial note that changes the arithmetic: stand-alone graduate certificates at UT do not qualify for federal financial aid. A roughly $28,000 in-state certificate has to be funded through savings, employer support, or private lending.

Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Graduate Certificate

The estimated tuition for the Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Graduate Certificate at UT Knoxville is approximately $18,886 in-state (19 credits at $994/credit) or $20,311 out-of-state (19 credits at $1,069/credit).

The program can generally be completed in about one year across three semesters, beginning in the summer term.

Certificate (Acute Care) Curriculum

This is the shortest and most narrowly targeted of UT’s four pediatric pathways, and the curriculum reflects that. There is no foundational pediatric content, no growth and development coursework, and no primary care sequence — the program assumes you already have all of it. What you get is three progressive acute care theory courses, three matched precepted clinical courses, and one on-campus clinical intensive, covering assessment, diagnosis, and management of children with acute, critical, and complex chronic illness across PICUs, emergency departments, inpatient units, and hospitalist services.

N689 Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner I
N690 Clinical Practice: Acute Care PNP I (includes the required initial assessment)
N691 Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner II
N692 Clinical Practice: Acute Care PNP II
N694 Clinical Intensive: Acute Care PNP
N695 Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner III
N696 Clinical Practice: Acute Care PNP III

More curriculum details are available here.

Certificate (Acute Care) Clinical Requirements

The itemized clinical courses total 9 credits — N690 (3), N692 (3), N694 (1), N696 (2) — which converts to 540 hours at UT’s stated 60 hours per credit
The 840 figure appears identical to the primary care certificate’s requirement and may be carried over in error
Applicants must document at least 240 prior pediatric clinical hours through curriculum analysis before admission
An initial assessment at the start of the first summer determines readiness; a score below 83% blocks the clinical rotation from starting
Same student-identified placement model and state-of-residence rule as the other tracks

Confirm this number before you commit — the difference between 540 and 840 hours is about five months of full-time clinical work. Either figure is defensible in context. This certificate is built for someone who already holds primary care PNP certification and has documented pediatric hours behind them, so a shorter acute care sequence is reasonable in a way it would not be for a first-time NP student. The gate that matters more is the initial assessment: UT will let you enroll, take you through admission, and then stop your clinical rotation if you score below 83%. Plan to arrive prepared, not to learn on the way in.

Certificate (Acute Care) Admissions

This is the most heavily gated pathway UT offers in pediatrics, and the gates are stacked. You must already be a nationally certified primary care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner — a general APRN certification is not sufficient here, unlike the primary care certificate.

Current national certification as a Primary Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner
MSN, MS in nursing, or DNP from a CCNE- or NLN CNEA-accredited program
Unencumbered RN and APRN licenses in the state of residency and clinical placement
Advanced health assessment, advanced pharmacology, and advanced pathophysiology within the previous five years
Minimum one year of work in an acute care setting, usually a hospital, before beginning coursework
At least 240 verified pediatric clinical hours covering growth and development, health promotion, and diagnostic reasoning
Passing score of 83% or higher on the initial assessment to begin clinicals
Essay and two references from master’s-prepared or higher faculty, supervisors, or providers
Summer start only; two-year completion limit

Read that list as a filter, not a checklist. If you are a certified CPNP-PC with hospital experience looking to move into inpatient pediatrics, this is one of the shortest and cheapest routes in the country to a second population focus. If you are anything else — an FNP, a new graduate, an RN without a PNP credential — this door is closed, and the dual DNP is your path to acute care preparation at UT.

Tuition

Estimated total tuition runs from about $18,900 for the acute care certificate to about $79,500 for the dual primary/acute care DNP at in-state rates, with out-of-state totals only about 7.5% higher.

Program	Est. In-State	Est. Out-of-State
DNP – Primary Care (69 cr)	$68,586	$73,761
DNP – Dual PC/AC (80 cr)	$79,520	$85,520
Certificate – Primary Care (28 cr)	$27,832	$29,932
Certificate – Acute Care (19 cr)	$18,886	$20,311

Estimates use UT’s Graduate Online Program rate for distance education students: $994 per credit in-state and $1,069 per credit out-of-state, both inclusive of the college’s $250 per-credit nursing differential. Rates were unchanged between UT’s Fall 2025 and Summer 2026 schedules.

Key Cost Takeaways

Out-of-state students pay only about $75 more per credit — roughly $5,200 extra across the full DNP, against the double-or-more premium most public universities charge.
The $250 per-credit nursing differential is built into every figure above and accounts for about a quarter of the per-credit cost.
Stand-alone graduate certificates do not qualify for federal financial aid, so certificate students need savings, employer support, or private lending.
Travel and lodging for required Knoxville intensives are not published and are not included in tuition. Budget separately for several trips per year.
The graduate maintenance fee caps at 9 credit hours, so heavier semesters cost modestly less than the straight-line estimates above.
Additional costs: $60 application fee, a seat fee to hold admission, background check and drug screen, liability and health insurance, and a graduation fee ($75 doctoral, $30 master’s-level).
The UT Board of Trustees resets rates each June or July, so multi-year programs should assume increases.

What makes UT’s pricing unusual is not the sticker price — $994 per credit sits mid-to-high among public PNP programs — but how little residency matters. Nearly every public university treats non-residents as a revenue source; UT charges them a rounding error. For a nurse in Georgia, Ohio, or Texas, that turns a Tennessee flagship into a legitimate national option, and it is the most decision-relevant number on this page. The limiting factor is not cost but state authorization: cheap tuition only helps if UT can place you in your state.

Full rates are published on UT’s tuition detail page.

Why Choose This PNP Program?

Best For

Nurses who want primary care, acute care, or dual PC/AC preparation from a single school
Out-of-state nurses seeking public-university pricing without the non-resident penalty
BSN nurses with no prior RN experience who want a direct doctoral path
Certified CPNP-PCs adding an acute care population focus in about a year
Students who want high clinical volume rather than a minimum-hour credential
Students comfortable finding their own pediatric preceptors

Biggest Strengths

Coverage. Very few schools prepare all three pediatric populations, and fewer do it at a distance. Pediatric nurses change direction mid-career more often than catalogs suggest, and UT keeps both doors open using the same course sequences — with a certificate route back for anyone who commits to one population first.

Clinical volume. 840 hours for a single population sits roughly 40% above the typical 600–750 band and well above the 500-hour certification floor. That difference tends to show in a graduate’s first year of practice.

Course structure. Every specialty term pairs theory with a precepted clinical course and either simulation or a graded campus intensive. Being assessed on the same content three ways in the same term is unusual, and it is hard to coast through.

Potential Drawbacks

Clinical placements are self-arranged, with no guarantee outside the Knoxville area
Clinical hours must be completed in your state of residence and licensure
UT cannot admit residents of Alaska, Arizona, or California; other states depend on authorization status
Required campus days in Knoxville each term that cannot be missed, made up, or substituted
840 unpaid clinical hours, with UT explicitly discouraging full-time work during the clinical phase
Minimum grade of 83 in nursing courses and no repeating graduate coursework — little margin for a bad semester
Certificates carry the same 840-hour requirement as the DNP, with no reduction for prior practice

Which Students Should Choose This Program?

The population decision comes first, because it determines which certification exam you can sit for and where you can practice.

Want outpatient pediatrics — offices, school-based health, health departments, subspecialty clinics? Choose the primary care DNP.
Want PICU, emergency, inpatient, or hospitalist work? You need acute care preparation, not primary care.
Already CPNP-PC certified with a year of hospital experience? The one-year acute care certificate is the fastest and cheapest route to a second population focus.
Not yet a PNP but want acute care? The dual DNP is your only route into UT’s acute care coursework — about $11,000 and three semesters more than the primary care DNP.
Genuinely undecided? That $11,000 premium buys real optionality, and few schools sell it.

Skip UT if you live in a community without enough pediatric practices to precept you, or in a state where UT lacks authorization. The economics here are excellent, but the placement model assumes you can solve the hardest part yourself.

Accreditation

The baccalaureate, Doctor of Nursing Practice, and post-graduate APRN certificate programs at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education — verified from the College of Nursing’s own accreditation page.

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