UT Tyler post-master's AGACNP certificate

The AGACNP certificate in brief

The School of Nursing launched the certificate in fall 2024, after receiving legislative funding in 2023 for a Critical Care Pathways program. UT Tyler calls it a two-year, doctoral-level certificate, and the courses must be taken in order. The one application deadline is August 9, for a fall start.

To apply you need graduate courses in advanced pathophysiology, health assessment and pharmacotherapeutics, plus one year of experience as an RN within the four years before you apply. The clinical rule matches UT Tyler's other NP tracks: Texas residence, and every clinical hour at a Texas site. OSCEs take place in the Braithwaite Building on the Tyler campus.

The first year is coursework. Clinical time starts in the first summer and runs through the second spring, three semesters with two practica each, so plan for back-to-back acute care placements once they begin.

Six 7-week windows in 2026-27

Each practicum fills one of the two 7-week Flex sessions inside a School of Nursing semester, so your preceptor has to fit a window of weeks rather than a full term. Laid over the 2026-27 School of Nursing calendar, the windows for the two cohorts in clinicals this year look like this.

Only the NURS 7385 dates appear in a published syllabus. The other rows apply UT Tyler's one-practicum-per-session pattern to the calendar, so confirm your sections in myUTTyler. Add, drop and withdrawal dates for each Flex session are on the academic calendar page.

Hospitals run their own calendars

If your acute care preceptor practices in a hospital, the hospital's student process comes before UT Tyler's. Take Tyler's CHRISTUS Trinity Mother Frances: its student page sets three request dates a year, March 1 for rotations after April 1, July 1 for rotations after August 1 and November 1 for rotations after December 1. It asks students to arrive with a preceptor already agreed, discourages cold calling and requires a new application every semester.

Lined up against the AGACNP windows, a summer practicum starting May 10 means a Trinity Mother Frances request by March 1, and the fall pair beginning August 27 means one by July 1, by our reading of the two calendars. In Longview, CHRISTUS Good Shepherd's page asks for the preceptor application two months (60 days) ahead of the rotation, and Houston Methodist's student NP page lists its own deadlines of April 30 for summer, July 15 for fall and November 13 for spring.

Each of these steps also depends on an affiliation agreement between UT Tyler and the facility, completed on paper with a wet signature. Affiliation agreements explains why they take time.

How we line up two years of acute care placements

Six practica means six windows, and often more than one facility. We plan the full clinical run from the day you are admitted, so each placement is settled before its Flex session opens.

1. Map the windowsYour six practica against the SON calendar and each facility's own request deadline.
2. Find acute care preceptors in your regionTexas hospital and acute care sites near you, checked for the adult and older adult patients the courses describe.
3. File ahead of the hospitalResume, preceptor confirmation and school details ready for the facility's student request, so its deadline is met.
4. Complete the UT Tyler sideEverything the Self-Placement Request and the affiliation agreement need, so the Clinical Coordinator can clear the site before Week 1.
5. Cover the gapsIf a preceptor or unit falls through mid-session, we start on a replacement at once, with the Week 2 deadline in view.

Send your region and admission term through the placement request form.