12 Best ADN Programs in Massachusetts – (2-Year Nursing Programs) (2024)

Program Details: The Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) at Bunker Hill Community College involves 39 credits of nursing theory coursework and more than 500 hours of clinical practice. Boston hospitals are recognized as some of the best in the nation, and you’ll have your first direct patient care experiences at renowned medical facilities like Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Boston Medical Center. Before you begin working with patients, though, you’ll have the opportunity to perfect your skills in BHCC’s sophisticated nursing simulation lab.

This ADN program in Massachusetts offers two tracks: a traditional campus track where you’ll attend classes during the day and an alternative track where 50 percent of your lectures will be available online. Core nursing courses include “Foundation of Patient Centered Care,” “Patient Centered Care-Adult & Mental Health,” and “Patient Centered Care-Adult & Families.” You can plan on spending between 90 and 158 hours per semester on clinical activities, and they start during your very first semester.

Program Details: Each year, Middlesex Community College admits 90 students into its 69-credit 2-year nursing program in Massachusetts: 30 students into its traditional fall class, 30 students into its traditional spring class, and 30 students into its alternative evenings/weekends class, which starts in the fall.

MCC’s curriculum is based on the Nurse of the Future Nursing Core Competency model. Core nursing coursework includes “Fundamentals of Nursing,” “Intergenerational Nursing,” and “Nursing Issues.” Many core nursing classes are paired with clinical components; thus, you’ll take “Nursing Care of the Adult” and “Nursing Care of the Adult Practicum” during the same semester.

Middlesex Community College’s clinical courses include skills labs, simulations, and direct care. The ADN program’s simulation suite is equipped with 10 high-fidelity manikins and areas replicating hospital units. Once you and your instructors are comfortable with your proficiency in hands-on skills, you’ll get to work with patients at Lowell General Hospital, Beth Israel Lahey Health, or one of MCC’s other clinical affiliates.

Program Details: Holyoke Community College admits students into its 70-credit ADN program in Massachusetts in the spring and fall. Holyoke’s poverty rate is twice that of the U.S. as a whole, so, much of this ADN program’s curriculum focuses on the challenges of delivering healthcare to low-income urban dwellers. You’ll take courses like “Health Promotion and Maintenance,” “Complex Care Across the Life Span,” and “Role Development.” HCC pays special attention to the critical role that drugs play in treatment with a four-semester Pharmacology course. The college also offers a life NCLEX-RN review the summer after graduation.

To be considered for admission into this two-year RN program in Massachusetts, you must either be a certified nursing assistant, a patient care technician, or an LPN or have completed a CNA training program. You’ll learn and hone basic patient care skills in labs equipped with high-quality patient simulators and task trainers. You’ll also pursue direct care experiences at healthcare facilities in Holyoke and nearby communities.

Program Details: North Shore Community College utilizes a competency-based, hybrid curriculum for its associate nursing degree program, making it one of the best 2-year nursing programs in Massachusetts for students whose professional or family obligations make it difficult to commit to a traditional classroom program. You can access lecture materials online, but you’ll attend skills labs and practic*ms in person. The college’s ADN program is headquartered at its Lacombe Campus.

The core nursing curriculum is centered around a four-semester “Nursing” class. You’ll also take courses like “Pharmacology and the Role of the Registered Nurse” and “The Registered Nurse in Contemporary Society.” You’ll receive hands-on training in nursing fundamentals in NSCC’s cutting-edge Bertolon Center, a simulation lab outfitted with medical equipment, task trainers, and programmable manikins. Clinical experiences are scheduled at healthcare facilities throughout Danvers and other parts of the northern Boston Metropolitan Area.

Program Details: Lawrence Memorial/Regis College may be the ideal 2-year nursing program in Massachusetts for students whose schedule demands flexibility. This associate nursing degree program has two tracks. If you enroll in the Day Division, you’ll attend lecture classes and pursue clinical experiences on weekdays; if you enroll in the Evening/Weekend Division, you’ll attend lecture classes on weekday evenings and participate in clinical experiences every other weekend on Friday evenings and during the day on Saturdays and Sundays.

This ADN program accepts new students in August and January. The 73-credit curriculum focuses on a patient-centered learning model that consists of four clinical nursing classes with a clinical component, one nursing lecture course without a clinical component, and nine non-nursing courses—at least two of which must be taken through Regis College to earn a degree from Regis College. Lecture classes meet at the Lawrence Memorial/Regis College campus in Medford, while clinical experiences occur at various healthcare facilities throughout Boston.

Program Details: Greenfield Community College is located in one of the more rural areas of Massachusetts, so it’s unsurprising that much of its ADN curriculum focuses on issues faced by rural healthcare professionals. You’ll need 70 credits to graduate, including general education and prerequisite classes and core nursing courses like “Fundamentals of Nursing,” “Medical-Surgical Nursing I & II,” and “Pediatric Nursing.”

Like several other 2-year nursing programs in Massachusetts, Greenfield Community College offers lecture courses and analogous clinical courses in the same semester, so you’ll enroll in “Mental Health Nursing” and “Mental Health Nursing Clinical” at the same time. Your ADN studies will culminate with a nursing capstone course that explores the political, social, economic, and legal issues influencing the delivery of nursing care.

Supervised clinical experiences take place at hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare facilities throughout Greenfield and other parts of north-central Massachusetts. You’ll use the interactive learning environment at nearby Baystate Franklin Medical Center to learn basic nursing skills and participate in simulation exercises.

Program Details: You can enroll in Massasoit Community College’s 65-credit ADN program in Massachusetts either as a full-time student graduating in four semesters or a part-time student graduating in six semesters. The curriculum is exactly the same for both tracks, except that classes for the part-time course of study are primarily taught in the evening. In addition to general education classes and prerequisites, you’ll take a five-part core nursing course, “Nursing I-V;” this set of courses has both lecture and clinical components. You’ll also enroll in a “Nursing Seminar,” introducing you to some of the legal and ethical issues confronting RNs in the 21st century.

Massasoit Community College shares a healthcare simulation laboratory with New England Sinai Hospital in nearby Stoughton, where you’ll learn and practice basic hands-on nursing skills. You’ll also participate in supervised patient care at healthcare facilities throughout Brockton and Plymouth County.

Program Details: Northern Essex Community College’s ADN program in Massachusetts consists of weekday nursing lectures and lab courses offered at the college’s Lawrence campus and practic*ms offered at clinical sites throughout Lawrence, Haverhill, and other communities in Essex County. This area is home to a large Hispanic population, so much of the college’s nursing curriculum concentrates on the challenges of providing nursing care to a diverse population. The program typically admits 30 students each fall.

In addition to corequisites, you’ll take one nursing lecture course, one nursing lab course, and one clinical course each semester. Nursing labs are scheduled at NECC’s El-Hefni Allied Health & Technology Center, a 44,000-square-foot facility equipped with simulated healthcare settings such as a hospital intensive care unit, a trauma room, an acute care hospital room, an apartment, an ambulance, and a doctor’s office.

Program Details: Core nursing classes that are part of Massachusetts Bay Community College’s associate nursing curriculum include “Introduction to Professional/Humanistic Nursing Concepts,” “Concepts in Nursing Care Across the Lifespan I, II, & III,” and “Concepts in Family Nursing.” Many lecture courses are paired with clinical classes that reinforce their concepts; thus, you’ll take “Concepts in Family Nursing” and “Concepts in Family Nursing Practicum” in the same semester. The fourth semester of this 2-year RN program in Massachusetts culminates with a capstone course that gives students the opportunity to showcase critical thinking skills.

Mass Bay’s Center for Health Sciences, Early Childhood, and Human Services is outfitted with state-of-the-art simulators and replicas of healthcare settings where students can participate in interactive learning scenarios. Hospitals and healthcare facilities throughout Framingham and other communities in the west Boston suburbs serve as clinical sites for supervised practic*ms.

Program Details: Springfield Technical Community College’s ADN is based on the Nurse of the Future Nursing Core Competencies mandated by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The 70-credit curriculum takes four semesters to complete and can only be pursued full-time. Coursework includes a four-part “Nursing” course series and a class called “Issues in Nursing 1 & 2.” While you’re taking core nursing classes, you’ll also be completing corequisites. You’ll need to pass a rigorous final exam before you can graduate from this program.

During your very first semester, you’ll start participating in practic*ms at hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare agencies throughout the Metropolitan Springfield Area. Clinical rotations are typically 12 hours long, and some may involve evening shifts, particularly during your first year of studies. The college’s SIMS Medical Center, designed to imitate the multiple healthcare settings you’ll find yourself in when you begin practicing as a registered nurse, is where you’ll learn and perfect your basic nursing skill sets.

Program Details: Every other year in even-numbered years, Cape Cod Community College opens up its ADN program to students who can only attend classes in the evenings and on weekends; this makes it easier for students with work or family obligations to pursue a nursing education. Each fall, this ADN program in Massachusetts also admits a student cohort that attends classes during traditional daytime hours.

The 68-credit curriculum includes prerequisites, corequisites, and core nursing coursework like “Fundamentals of Nursing,” “Nursing Across the Lifespan,” and “Physical and Mental Health I & II.” Laboratory and clinical practic*ms are integrated into lecture courses. You’ll also take a pharmacology course and a class devoted to dosage calculations.

Cape Cod Community College has a Simulation Center in its Center for Nursing and Allied Health. Here, you will develop competency in the skills necessary to safely and effectively care for patients by utilizing high-fidelity manikins and other integrated technology in realistic healthcare scenarios. You’ll also participate in direct patient experiences at hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare facilities throughout West Barnstable and Cape Cod.

Program Details: Bristol Community College’s ADN program offers aspiring RNs two ways to achieve their ambition: They can attend the traditional classroom track, or they can enroll in the hybrid track, which uses online lectures but in-person skills labs, clinical experiences, and exams. The 70-credit program takes four semesters to complete and includes corequisites as well as core nursing courses like “Fundamentals of Nursing,” “Parent-Child Nursing,” and “Nursing Care of the Adult I & II.”

Each core nursing class consists of four hours of lectures and 12 hours of clinical experience. Nursing labs are held in a high-tech simulation lab located in the John J. Sbrega Health and Science Building. Supervised patient care experiences are conducted at hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare facilities throughout Fall River and other communities straddling the Massachusetts/Rhode Island border.

ADN Programs in Other States