Admission runs through an Enrollment Advisor on a rolling basis: completion and undergraduate programs are broadly open-enrollment, graduate and doctoral programs set GPA floors, the DNP wants an MSN at 3.0-plus and an unrestricted RN license, and no general application fee stands in the way. Sections start on alternating Tuesdays, roughly twenty-four entry points a year, each opening an 8-week course. The lever worth pulling hard is transfer: up to 90 credits into a bachelor's, 18 into a master's, 9 into a doctorate, and the RN-to-BSN awards 90 lower-division credits outright, leaving thirty to earn. One label to read honestly: Aspen's institutional accreditor is DEAC, the national distance-education commission, with nursing additionally CCNE-accredited, worth knowing before you plan credit transfers outward.
The enrollment sequence, optimized
Check your program's floor
Undergraduate completion programs open on a diploma and transcripts; graduate programs read GPA; the DNP checks the MSN, the license, and standing. Near-misses should ask the advisor about provisional routes before self-rejecting.
Feed the transfer evaluation everything
The ceilings are generous, 90, 18, and 9 by level, and RN-to-BSN entrants start with 90 banked. At per-credit pricing every accepted credit is cash kept, per the tuition manual.
Read the accreditation label like an adult
DEAC is legitimate national accreditation and CCNE covers the nursing programs; the practical wrinkle is outbound, some regionally-accredited graduate schools scrutinize DEAC credits in transfer. If Aspen is your destination degree, it is a non-issue; if it is a stepping stone, ask the destination first.
Pick your Tuesday deliberately
A start every other week means waiting is never expensive, so choose the window whose first fortnight your life can hold. Eight-week courses grade from week one.
Nursing's specifics at the door
The active RN-to-BSN completion program requires 30 Aspen credits including 110 field-experience hours; each current MSN specialty lists 120 practicum hours, while the RN-to-MSN bridges also include the 110-hour field stage. The DNP lists 42 credits and 1,000 immersion hours, with DNP890 Practicum and DNP899 Project Capstone. The governing catalog, admission record, and registered program control each student's requirements; tutoring can help plan around them but students complete and verify all experiential work.
Starting strong on the 8-week clock
- Map all eight weeks in the first sitting; the term has no recovery arc
- Graduate entrants: internalize the no-D rule before week one, per the grading manual
- Set the next start before finishing the current course; the biweekly calendar rewards chains and forgives breathers
- First course wobbling? The desk exists precisely for week-three interventions
A Tuesday is always fourteen days away
Send your program and transcript situation. The transfer plan and first-course map come back free.
Sources and verification
Facts on this page come from official and independent sources, and anything that matters is worth checking against the originals:
- www.aspen.edu: Aspen University's official site, the primary source for admissions, start-date, and transfer facts
- aspen.smartcatalogiq.com: the official Aspen University catalog
- www.deac.org: Distance Education Accrediting Commission, the institutional accreditor
- www.ccneaccreditation.org: Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, the nursing accreditor
- apastyle.apa.org: APA Style, the official style authority behind the formatting rules