Obviously, geography and the area where you practice (acute care/hospital based vs primary care based) will affect your first salary. I have always worked in cardiology (both inpatient and outpatient), so my resultant salary was always a bit higher than the norm. FT salary in the Washington DC suburbs with weekend call was about 120k....and I have worked as an NP since 2001. Obviously, younger grads will probably make less. The most lucrative environments are surgery and ER...and orthopedics.