Every ranked institution in Massachusetts, with what the federal record
publishes for it and how its score was composed.
Ranked 1 of 10
Amherst, MA
95.9 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Amherst answers up front the question most online programs leave you to find out late: it cannot accept DNP students who live in Alabama, Minnesota, New York, Oregon or Washington. If you are in one of those five states, that settles it before you compare anything else. For everyone else the coursework runs entirely online, the clinical side is done through internships where you already are, and the degree ends in a project that puts research evidence to work in a practice setting you choose. The post-baccalaureate route concentrates on psychiatric mental health, so this is a doctorate pointed at one population rather than a general one. You can also take a master’s in nursing on the way through instead of finishing with nothing in between.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 97
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 83
Ranked 2 of 10
Lowell, MA
79 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
Lowell publishes a separate degree pathway for master’s-prepared nurses who are not advanced practice registered nurses, a group most schools leave to work out their own plan. If your master’s was in education, administration or informatics, there is a named route here rather than a case-by-case negotiation. The scholarly project splits into three graded courses covering design, implementation, and dissemination with advocacy and policy, so the work is paced across the program instead of saved for the end. Before clinical rotations you work in simulation labs using high-fidelity manikins and trained actors as simulated patients. The catalog publishes a pathway per entry year, so the plan you are held to is the one in force when you start.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 98.1
- Established program 66.5
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 44.7
Ranked 3 of 10
North Dartmouth, MA
77 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
2 DNP tracks at this
institution, Nursing practice (general), Psychiatric-mental health NP. Ranked once, on the largest.
Dartmouth restricts this program to New England and says so precisely. Your registered nurse license must be from Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts or Rhode Island, your permanent residence must be in one of those states, and your supervised clinical hours have to happen there as well. All three conditions, not one of them. If you sit outside that footprint, stop here. For everyone inside it the arrangement is unusually clean: classes are asynchronous and fully remote except for one on-campus day each semester. The adult-gerontology primary care route from a bachelor’s runs on a four or five year plan, and the four-year version totals 1,008 practicum hours. Publishing an exact hour total against a named plan is rarer than it should be.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 100
- Established program 69.9
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 17
Ranked 4 of 10
Chicopee, MA
70.2 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
Elms publishes its two nurse practitioner timelines plainly: about three years full time if you enter with a bachelor’s, and about two and a half if you already hold a master’s. That six-month gap is smaller than at most schools, where a master’s typically saves a year or more, so if you are MSN-prepared and comparing programs on time saved, this is one where the advantage is thinner than usual. It is a small private college in Chicopee of roughly 1,270 students, and it confers around nineteen doctorates a year, which is a high output for its size and suggests the nursing doctorate is a substantial part of what the college does.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 62.3
- Established program 89.8
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 51.1
Ranked 5 of 10
Chestnut Hill, MA
61.1 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
Boston College runs three ways in, and one of them is unusual: registered nurses without a bachelor’s degree can enter directly if they have completed roughly 112 college credits, earning the master’s for practitioner preparation and continuing straight into the doctorate. The other two routes start from a bachelor’s or a master’s in nursing. All three want an undergraduate average of B or better and a completed statistics course, and the school states plainly that AP credit will not cover the statistics. Clinical work rotates across three to six sites rather than parking you at one, and those include Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, so the settings differ from each other in ways that show up in what you see. Tuition is near the top of the range on this site.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 22.3
- Established program 100
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 100
Ranked 6 of 10
Longmeadow, MA
60.1 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Bay Path publishes both routes as course counts, which is a more honest unit than years. Bachelor’s entry is 70 credits across 19 courses. Master’s entry is 36 credits across 12 courses. Both carry 1,000 supervised clinical hours, and that is the part worth noticing: holding a master’s halves the coursework here without reducing the clinical requirement, which is not how every school handles it. Everything runs online, the family practitioner track included, so the clinical hours are the only part that happens in a building. Bay Path is small, and against its size it confers nursing doctorates at a rate in the top quarter nationally, so the program is a serious piece of what the university does.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 67.1
- Established program 75.9
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 0
Ranked 7 of 10
Boston, MA
56.9 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Public
- Doctorate (professional)
- Offered online
Boston runs both entries, one from a bachelor’s in nursing and one from a master’s for advanced practice nurses already in the field, and points the degree at systems rather than at a new patient population: health systems leadership, policy development and interdisciplinary work. A post-master’s certificate in psychiatric mental health runs alongside for nurses who want that credential without committing to a doctorate. This is a small doctoral program. It confers only a couple of nursing doctorates a year, which cuts both ways: a cohort of a handful and faculty attention a larger program cannot match, against fewer people to compare notes with.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 99.5
- Established program 15.8
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 10.6
Ranked 8 of 10
Boston, MA
44.3 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
Northeastern’s post-master’s doctorate is 30 semester hours and primarily online. What the catalog shows clearly is how the doctoral work is structured: three sequential scholarly project courses covering design and ethical considerations, then implementation and outcomes, then dissemination. Splitting the project across three graded courses means it gets paced through the program rather than left to pile up at the end. Three of the thirty hours are electives you choose in consultation with a faculty advisor, which is a small amount of real flexibility inside an otherwise fixed sequence. The program sits within a health sciences college rather than a standalone nursing school, so the people around you come from across the health professions.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 28.5
- Established program 42.8
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 100
Ranked 9 of 10
Boston, MA
37.1 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (professional)
2 DNP tracks at this
institution, Family nurse practitioner, Nursing practice (general). Ranked once, on the largest.
Simmons publishes its clinical hours per component rather than as one total, which makes the executive leadership route unusually easy to plan against. The doctoral portion carries 252 clinical hours, 29 credit hours and at least 181 hours on the DNP project itself. Come in from a BSN and the master’s leadership stage adds 567 clinical hours and 35 credits ahead of all that. The format is blended, online coursework with in-person elements, rather than either extreme. If you did your master’s at Simmons the route is materially easier to start: a streamlined application, the application fee waived, and up to five credits waived from the standard thirty once you are accepted.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 56.3
- Established program 0
- Institution-wide undergraduate completion 59.6
Ranked 10 of 10
Boston, MA
27.4 of 100
- CCNE-accredited
- Private nonprofit
- Doctorate (other)
3 DNP tracks at this
institution, Geriatric, Nursing administration, Nursing practice (general). Ranked once, on the largest.
This is a graduate health professions school rather than a university with a nursing college inside it, and the doctorate is built for people already running something. The curriculum is modeled on executive MBA programs, which here means online coursework broken up by in-person intensives rather than a fully remote degree. You pick the pace at admission: four semesters or five, with two part-time options beside them, and the choice is framed around what your job will tolerate. Everyone on this campus is in a health profession, so the people in your cohort are clinicians rather than general graduate students. Against an enrollment of about 1,700 it confers nursing doctorates at one of the higher rates in the country, which is what a specialist campus looks like in the federal data.
Scored on
- Published in-state graduate tuition 0
- Established program 66.5
