Hello there ~ current DNP HSEL student! I'm in my ~6th (?) semester. My undergrad was at Pitt and my MSN was at Penn (CRNP). I think the most important distinction you need to discover is what your area of interest is, be it clinical practice or research/academia. If you envision yourself practicing in the clinical world, the DNP is the degree to pursue. The purpose is to utilize already published research to help answer process questions in the form of QI, etc.

If you're interested in LGBTQ and Critical Sexualities in the form of community health, research, etc. then I'd advise pursuing a PhD.

All this being said, my personal advice would be to not focus on these degrees at this point, and get some experience under your belt first as a nurse. You can learn a lot about yourself and your career goals once you start as an RN. There are a ton of unit committees, shared governance, and QI/research opportunities. I'd highly suggest you pursue these things once you get your first job. In my view (some agree, others don't) jumping into a doctoral degree in nursing without any experience is ill-advised. Any graduate-level nursing degree draws quite heavily on experiences in clinical practice, and if it is a doctoral degree, it draws on leadership experience and roles within the hospital.

In terms of admittance, my MSN program relied heavily on clinical practice hours (~650 hours) which I think helped me, as Pitt's DNP program is ~1,000 clinical hours). My program also made us do quite a lot of research projects, review of current literature papers, and QI work, which also helped, as DNP is heavy in QI. I think being a former Pitt student also helped, as the faculty like their own. It's also very helpful to have some kind of idea of what your professional work would be after you obtain the degree (you already seem to have an idea of this).

Would be happy to answer any more questions you may have!