South Dakota and Concordia University Wisconsin's online NP programs
If you live in South Dakota, Concordia University Wisconsin's disclosure is blunt: each graduate nurse practitioner table lists your state under "Does Not Meet Requirements." A South Dakota NP license is therefore a question for CUW before you enroll. Below: the row, the Board's stance on outside schools, the Minnesota side of Sioux Falls, and where our search fits.
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The South Dakota row
No graduate NP table lists South Dakota as meeting, and the online RN to BSN sides with them; the traditional and accelerated BSN tables are the exceptions.
| CUW program | South Dakota |
|---|---|
| Master of Science in Nursing - Primary Care Nurse Practitioner | Does Not Meet Requirements |
| Doctor of Nursing Practice - Post BSN to DNP Program | Does Not Meet Requirements |
| Doctor of Nursing Practice - Post MSN to DNP Program | Does Not Meet Requirements |
| CAGE (FNP/AGPCNP) | Does Not Meet Requirements |
| CAGE (PMH NP) | Does Not Meet Requirements |
| MSN PMHNP and PMHNP DNP | Not in the table |
South Dakota has sat on CUW's cautious lists for years. CUW's MSN page, in both its 2022 and 2024 archived versions, excluded new South Dakota students, and the 2022 Post-MSN DNP page did the same, even while the 2023 to mid-2024 disclosure credited South Dakota with a Meets on the MSN and DNP tables. The August 2024 table ended the mismatch; the licensure disclosure guide has the detail.
What the Board expects of a school based elsewhere
South Dakota's Board simply stays out of approving schools from other states. A Board handout for outside schools, last updated in 2020, puts direct-care placements squarely in the hands of the school and its South Dakota host, by private agreement with the preceptor or agency.
One bar remains, and it falls on the school. For NP students training in the state, the Board looks for at least one person on the program's faculty with South Dakota APRN licensure or the privilege to practice at that level, a test the state's distance-education rule (ARSD 20:48:07:49) repeats for every instructor of APRN students physically present there. Whether CUW has that person on staff is for the Graduate Clinical Coordinator to say. The catalog's out-of-state rule is on clinicals outside Wisconsin.
Full practice after a collaborative start
AANP files South Dakota under full practice, with a runway: a new NP first logs 1,040 hours in a written collaborative arrangement, the partner being a physician, certified NP or certified nurse midwife. For its own programs, South Dakota also asks that an APRN preceptor practice in a role and population focus comparable to the student's; CUW's criteria sit on top of that, as preceptor requirements explains.
Of the large systems, Sanford Health and Avera Health are joined by Monument Health; each keeps its own student rules. People cluster in the Sioux Falls metro, a little over 300,000 strong, then around Rapid City, with Aberdeen a distant third. No South Dakota preceptor incentive is on record.
Two compacts, and the Minnesota catch
South Dakota and Wisconsin both started multistate RN licensing on January 19, 2018. South Dakota then went further: NCSBN called it the fourth jurisdiction to adopt the APRN Compact when it was signed in early February 2024. That compact needs seven member states to switch on, and Wisconsin has not adopted it, so NP licenses remain single-state.
Here is the catch. The Sioux Falls metro crosses into Minnesota, which has never entered the nurse compact; a multistate license from South Dakota therefore carries no weight on the Minnesota side. A nurse in Sioux Falls weighing a Minnesota clinic needs Minnesota's own RN license question answered first; your RN license for CUW clinicals covers CUW's side.
Where South Dakota students use us
South Dakota's neighbors split sharply in CUW's table. Minnesota, Iowa, Montana and Wyoming meet in all five NP tables, North Dakota meets in all but the Post-MSN DNP, and Nebraska shares South Dakota's Does Not Meet answer.
CUW students choose us when their license will sit in one of those Meets states, for example a Sioux Falls nurse who is moving to, or already licensed in, Minnesota. Your placement advisor checks the row for your licensure state, searches primary care practices on the right side of the line, sets all three clinical courses in order and gives CUW's graduate faculty a complete file. For MSN students the short Advanced Health Assessment intensive on the Mequon campus is a fixed trip, and the plan works around it. Start on the contact form.
Questions CUW students ask
Is CUW's online nurse practitioner program approved in South Dakota?
Approval is not something South Dakota's Board grants to outside schools, and CUW's disclosure puts South Dakota in the not-meeting column for every graduate NP program it lists. Planning NP practice in South Dakota? Ask CUW for its licensure answer in writing before applying.
Does South Dakota's APRN Compact membership help a CUW graduate?
Not for now. The compact sits dormant until a seventh state adopts it, whatever South Dakota did in 2024, and Wisconsin has not adopted it. Even when it runs, it would not change CUW's table, which still describes South Dakota as not meeting requirements for its NP programs.
Can I live in Sioux Falls and do my CUW clinicals in Minnesota?
Minnesota meets in every CUW NP table, but check two things. Your South Dakota multistate license gives no Minnesota privilege, since Minnesota never joined the compact. And CUW's table speaks to the state where you will be licensed: if that stays South Dakota, clinicals in Minnesota leave South Dakota's row unchanged.
Who oversees a CUW student at a South Dakota site?
Your preceptor does the day-to-day teaching, but South Dakota's Board expects the school itself to employ at least one instructor holding South Dakota APRN authority, by license or privilege, for NP students in the state. CUW has not published how it meets that expectation, so bring it up with CUW's Graduate Clinical Coordinator while a South Dakota practice is still only a prospect.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-26
We check these pages against CUW's own academic catalog, program pages and published nursing documents. Your course faculty and the Graduate Clinical Coordinator have the final word.
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