RN license requirements for Augusta University clinicals

What Augusta University requires

Four published statements set the license rules for Augusta University nursing students who are already RNs. Each comes from a different page, so it helps to see them together.

• DNP admissions (Graduate School): proof of a current, unencumbered Georgia RN license or a multistate RN license before enrollment.
• Compliance policy (CON16): graduate students need an unrestricted RN license before matriculation unless their admission contract says otherwise, and a multistate compact license may be needed to complete a graduate clinical rotation or meet an agency's requirements.
• Post-graduate certificate admissions: enrolled students must get an extra RN license for each state in which their clinical experiences happen.
• RN to BSN (catalog): a valid, unrestricted Georgia RN license.

BSN and MSN Clinical Nurse Leader students are prelicensure, so none of this applies to them until they are licensed. Nurse Anesthesia students train at program clinical sites in Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Tennessee; all four are compact states in NCSBN's data (Alabama since 2020, the rest since 2018), so a multistate license reaches every one of them.

Multistate versus single-state licenses

Under the Nurse Licensure Compact, the state you declare as your primary residence issues your multistate license, and that license carries practice privileges into every other member state. A single-state license is limited to its issuing state. Because Augusta University's NP and certificate students must live in Georgia or South Carolina, the combinations are few.

• Georgia resident with a Georgia multistate license: covered for clinicals in both states.
• South Carolina resident with a South Carolina multistate license: covered in both, and Georgia's rule treats a multistate license issued by a fellow compact member as enough.
• Single-state license from either state: covered only in that state; clinical time across the line needs a multistate license or a second license.

Check the type printed on your license record with your state Board before you plan a site across the Savannah River. Because the multistate license follows your declared home state, moving across the border mid-program means checking in with the Board of your new state; the Georgia and South Carolina rule covers how a move affects the residence requirement.

After graduation: APRN authorization is state by state

The RN compact stops at your registered nurse license and does not carry a nurse practitioner role with it. Georgia and South Carolina have not adopted the APRN Compact, and with only five states on board it has not taken effect anywhere, so each state decides advanced practice status for itself.

After you pass national certification in your population, the Georgia Board of Nursing grants APRN authorization, and a Georgia NP then needs a signed protocol with a physician who delegates medical acts. A South Carolina nurse practitioner is licensed by that state's Board and must show evidence of a practice agreement with a physician. If you may practice on both sides of the river, plan for both processes. The certification guide covers the exams and each state's steps.

Augusta University's DNP page reports that the program satisfies initial licensure requirements across the states and territories, Maryland excepted, where certain concentrations may need additional review.