Old Dominion University offers an MSN – Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (Primary Care) track.
Program Track Overview
| Program | Est. Tuition | Est. Duration | Credit Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSN – PC | $29.6K (VA) | Not stated | 44 -47 |
ODU’s defining advantage is efficiency. At 44 credits and 560 clinical hours, it is one of the shortest PNP programs in the country, and at $662–$672 per credit it is one of the cheapest ways to reach primary care pediatric certification. The trade-off is travel: you return to the Virginia Beach campus roughly once per semester for simulation testing, and again for a final on-campus comprehensive exam.
Quick Facts
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Program Types | MSN (BSN entry) |
| Format | Mostly Online; campus visit about once per semester |
| Population Focus | Primary Care only (CPNP-PC). No acute care track. |
| Clinical Hours | 560 minimum |
| Clinical Placement | Student identifies sites; ODU coordinator secures agreements |
| Distinctive Coursework | Telehealth, standardized-patient simulation, chronic and complex pediatric conditions |
| RN License Requirements | Current, unencumbered RN license |
| RN Experience Requirements | 1 year preferred; sources conflict on whether required |
| Hard Prerequisite Gate | Undergrad health assessment + statistics/research before the deadline, or no review |
| Application Deadline | March 1 priority (annual cycle) |
| Program Fee | $450 per semester, non-refundable, on top of tuition |
| Licensure Restriction | Designed for nurses licensed in Virginia or a compact state |
| Tuition | $672/credit (VA domicile); $662/credit (outside Virginia) |
| Accreditation | CCNE |
MSN PNP Curriculum
Foundation courses (19 credits). The MSN core is shared across all of ODU’s nurse practitioner concentrations: advanced pathophysiology, pharmacology, and physical assessment, plus role development, evidence-based research, and a course on the business of advanced practice. That last one is less common than it should be — most MSN cores skip billing, contracting, and practice economics entirely.
PNP specialty sequence (25 credits). The pediatric sequence is built around three stacked practicums interleaved with condition-management coursework, so didactic content and clinical hours advance together rather than front-loading theory.
- NURS 705 – Primary Care Approaches for Children (3)
- NURS 781 – Advanced Pediatric Nursing: Practicum I, Primary Care (3)
- NURS 782 – The Growth and Development of Children in the 21st Century (3)
- NURS 783 – Management of Acute Pediatric Conditions I (3)
- NURS 784 – Advanced Pediatric Nursing: Practicum II (4)
- NURS 785 – Seminar in Pediatrics: Management of Chronic and Complex Clinical Conditions (3)
- NURS 786 – Management of Acute/Critical Pediatric Conditions II (3)
- NURS 788 – Advanced Pediatric Nursing: Practicum III (3)
Read the acute-sounding course titles carefully. NURS 783 and NURS 786 cover management of acute and critical pediatric conditions, but this is a primary care program. Those courses teach you to recognize, stabilize, and refer a deteriorating child from an outpatient setting. They do not make you eligible for the CPNP-AC exam. If you want inpatient or PICU practice, ODU is not the program.
Distinctive elements. Telehealth and interprofessional collaboration are built into the curriculum rather than offered as electives — useful given how much pediatric primary care has shifted toward virtual triage. ODU also runs simulation through the Sentara Center for Simulation and Immersive Learning, using trained standardized patients rather than mannequins alone, and the school maintains a working relationship with Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters in Norfolk, Virginia’s only freestanding full-service children’s hospital. A comprehensive portfolio evaluation is required for graduation, and every NURS course requires a B or better; two course failures end the program.
More curriculum details are available here.
MSN PNP Clinical Requirements
- Minimum 560 supervised clinical hours
- Earned across three practicum courses: NURS 781 (3 credits), NURS 784 (4 credits), NURS 788 (3 credits) — 10 practicum credits, roughly 56 hours per credit
- Settings include primary care and pediatric specialty practice
- Preceptors must be approved by faculty
- Students submit preceptor and site requests at least three months before each clinical course begins
- The Program Director reviews requests for role and course alignment; a clinical placement coordinator then secures the affiliation agreement
- Sites are preferably located in the student’s home community
- Standardized patient and simulation training or testing at the Virginia Beach campus, generally once per semester
- Final comprehensive exam must be demonstrated at the Virginia Beach campus
- Background check, drug screen, immunizations, physical exam, and CPR certification required
560 hours sits just above the 500-hour national certification floor and below the 600–750 hours most single-population PNP programs require. In-state, the University of Virginia’s pediatric DNP tracks run 750. That gap is the central trade-off at ODU: you finish sooner and pay less, but you enter your first job with roughly 40 to 190 fewer supervised pediatric hours than a typical peer. For a nurse with years of pediatric bedside experience, that gap is easy to absorb. For a nurse coming from adult med-surg, it is worth thinking hard about.
The placement model is a genuine middle ground and deserves plain description. ODU does not guarantee placements, and it does not leave you alone either. You identify the site, the program director signs off on fit, and a staffed coordinator handles the contracting — which is the part that actually stalls students at schools with no placement office. The three-month lead time is a real deadline, not a courtesy. Plan for it, because pediatric preceptors are meaningfully harder to secure than adult ones, and a family practice that occasionally sees children may not satisfy a pediatric-specific requirement.
MSN PNP Admissions
One requirement disqualifies applicants before review: the undergraduate prerequisites must already be complete when you apply. ODU states plainly that applications without them will not be reviewed.
- Current, unencumbered RN license
- Completed undergraduate physical/health assessment course and undergraduate statistics or research course, verified by official transcript, before the application deadline
- BSN from a regionally accredited institution with a minimum 3.0 GPA
- Three letters of recommendation — at least one from a former faculty member, at least one from a former employer from your RN role
- A 500–700 word essay on your goals and reasons for pursuing advanced practice certification
- GRE or MAT waived if your undergraduate GPA is 3.5 or higher; otherwise required
- Priority application deadline of March 1 for the annual fall cohort
- Program is designed for nurses licensed in Virginia or a compact state; check ODU’s state licensure disclosure directory before applying
NOTE: ODU’s sources conflict on RN experience. The School of Nursing PNP page lists one year of current RN experience as a requirement; the 2026–2027 graduate catalog lists it as preferred but not required. If you are applying with less than a year, ask the program director directly rather than assuming.
The GRE rule is worth flagging separately. Most PNP programs have dropped standardized tests entirely, so a 3.4 GPA applicant here faces a testing requirement that would not exist at many peer schools. Build in scheduling time.
Related Pediatric Pathways at ODU (Not PNP)
ODU also offers a Pediatric Clinical Nurse Specialist concentration and a post-master’s Advanced Practice DNP. Neither is a PNP program. The Pediatric CNS prepares a different APRN role with different certification and does not lead to CPNP-PC or CPNP-AC eligibility — the overlapping pediatric course numbers make these easy to confuse on ODU’s site.
The DNP is a progression option after you finish the MSN, and it carries a trap worth knowing now: you must declare your intent to pursue the DNP before the final semester of your MSN. Miss that window and you reapply as a new post-master’s applicant, competing against the full pool.
Tuition
Estimated total tuition is approximately $29,568 for Virginia residents and $29,128 for students living outside Virginia, based on 44 credits at the 2026–2027 online graduate rates.
At the 49-credit figure ODU’s marketing page advertises, those totals rise to roughly $32,928 and $32,438.
Derivation: 44 credits × $672/credit (Virginia domicile) = $29,568. 44 credits × $662/credit (outside Virginia) = $29,128.
- Program fee: $450 per semester, non-refundable. This is not on the marketing page. Across a typical four to six semester plan, it adds roughly $1,800–$2,700.
- Course technology fee: $30 per credit hour — about $1,320 over 44 credits
- Innovation fee: $8 per credit hour — about $352 over 44 credits
- General services fee: $9 per 16-week term or $9 per 8-week term; ID card fee $2–$4 per term
- Travel and lodging for once-per-semester Virginia Beach visits and the final comprehensive exam
- Rates are effective Fall 2026 and subject to change
- Virginia residents without Virginia domicile pay the standard $1,361 per credit graduate rate — a materially different program
- New applicants are automatically considered for the Monarch Rise Scholarship, a one-time award of up to $3,000; traineeship grants may be available subject to funding
All-in, budget closer to $33,000–$34,000 than the $29,000 tuition line. The unusual detail here: students outside Virginia pay $10 per credit less than Virginia residents, because ODU’s flat online rate excludes the $162 per-credit auxiliary tuition that in-state students are charged. It is a small dollar difference, but it means out-of-state applicants face none of the residency-based penalty they would at almost any other public school.
View ODU’s official graduate tuition page.
Why Choose This PNP Program?
Best suited for nurses who already have solid pediatric bedside experience, want the fastest and least expensive route to CPNP-PC certification, and can get to Virginia Beach once a semester.
The value case is straightforward. At roughly $33,000 all-in and 44 credits, ODU costs a fraction of what most PNP programs charge, and the 560-hour clinical requirement means fewer terms of juggling unpaid rotations against a paycheck. The outcomes data supports the choice rather than undercutting it: ODU reports 100% degree completion and 100% certification pass rates for 2022, 2023, and 2024, with employment at 91% to 100% across the same period. Small programs can post perfect numbers on small cohorts, but three consecutive years is a real signal. The staffed clinical placement coordinator matters more than it sounds — placement contracting is where online NP students most often lose a semester.
The honest limitations are three. First, this is primary care only. Nurses who want PICU, pediatric ED, or inpatient specialty practice need an acute care program, and Virginia’s only PNP-AC option is at UVA. Second, the campus requirement is not optional or virtual — the simulation testing and the final comprehensive exam happen in Virginia Beach, which makes this a poor fit for someone in Oregon shopping for a zero-travel program. Third, 560 hours is lean. If you are transitioning into pediatrics from another specialty, the shorter clinical runway is a cost, not a saving.
Against the in-state alternative, the comparison is clean. UVA’s pediatric tracks are doctoral, run 750 clinical hours, cost substantially more per credit, and require in-person class attendance in Charlottesville roughly monthly. ODU is the master’s-level, lower-cost, lower-travel option — and the right choice if a DNP is not your near-term goal.
Accreditation
The baccalaureate, master’s, and Doctor of Nursing Practice programs at Old Dominion University are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE). Old Dominion University is institutionally accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). There are no candidacy or probationary flags on this program.
ODU states that the MSN PNP prepares graduates for CPNP-PC certification. The certifying body is the Pediatric Nursing Certification Board (PNCB), which awards the CPNP-PC credential to primary care graduates. Because ODU offers no acute care track, graduates are not eligible for the CPNP-AC exam. Prospective students outside Virginia should confirm their state’s licensure recognition through ODU’s state licensure disclosure directory before enrolling.
Review More Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Programs Near You
- University of Virginia - Charlottesville