Preceptors for Drexel's online FNP

The FNP is taught online with synchronous lectures and is offered part-time only, across four 10-week quarters a year. The 2026–27 catalog lists 56.0 quarter credits, and Drexel quotes three years as the typical length. Applications are open for Winter 2027, which begins January 4, and for Fall 2027, which begins August 23. Drexel prefers one to two years of medical-surgical nursing before you apply.

Clinical students come to campus once. NURS 534 opens with a four-day On-Campus Intensive during its first summer week, built around simulation in CNHP's patient simulation lab. Keep that week clear before you promise a preceptor your summer schedule; On-Campus Intensives tracks the dates for every track.

Your home state matters as much as the course plan. Drexel is not admitting FNP applicants from Oregon, Wyoming, Colorado, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Louisiana or Alabama. New Yorkers may enroll, yet every FNP rotation has to happen outside New York State. Washington's nursing commission has approved Drexel practice experiences for the FNP MSN. State authorization has the detail.

Each FNP clinical course pairs a didactic class with a rotation in the same quarter. The hours below come from the current quarter course descriptions; titles, prerequisites and the full plan sit on Drexel FNP clinical courses.

Before NURS 534 you need at least a B in each of the ten MSN core and support courses, among them NURS 548 Advanced Pathophysiology and the FNP pharmacology course, NURS 556. Drexel's sample plans schedule NUPR 520, its 0-credit clinical orientation seminar, in fall of year two, roughly three quarters ahead of the first rotation, and that seminar introduces clinical contracting and compliance.

Drexel signs off on three kinds of FNP preceptor: nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, and physicians practicing in a specialty the department approves. Whoever you ask must be licensed and certified under their own state's rules, currently board certified, and at least twelve months into practice. Physician assistants are left off that list. Your preceptor submits a CV with license and certification proof, later rates you at midterm and final, and confirms your logged time in E*Value.

The catalog frames FNP clinical work as ambulatory care and names the settings: primary care clinics, physician offices, HMOs, schools, emergency departments, long-term care, public health, correctional institutions and home health. A family practice is the natural base, but the course titles tell you when the population shifts. NURS 535 centers on infants, children and adolescents, while NURS 536 and NURS 537 move to adults across the adult age spectrum.

Drexel publishes no minimum number of hours per preceptor, no NP-versus-physician split and no rules on relatives or your own employer. Ask your track director before counting on a site where you work. Drexel preceptor requirements collects the rules that apply to every track.

The pediatric quarter is the usual pinch point. Many family clinicians see some children, but NURS 535 needs a preceptor whose days can fill 160 hours with infants, school-age children and teenagers. Secure that preceptor before the adult courses, which draw on a far larger pool of internists, family physicians and adult NPs.

Big systems narrow the field. Tower Health's rotation request form says it will not accept NP requests. UPMC's advanced practice office names family medicine and pediatrics as specialties it does not help place, and Penn State Health puts its own students first and bars private approaches to its providers. Independent practices and community health centers are often the quicker yes; Philadelphia clinical sites covers the local systems.

Students report that the search takes months. One Drexel FNP graduate, interviewed on an outside directory site, described it as a full-time job and suggested starting up to a year ahead. Drexel itself publishes no placement-request deadline, so your real markers are NUPR 520 and the due dates your compliance coordinator sends.

Drexel's calendar change touches your clinical plan in two places. First, the summer of 2027 shrinks to a seven-week bridge term, running June 21 through August 7, and the quarter sample plan puts both NURS 534, with its four-day intensive, and NURS 538 in summer. Drexel has not published how a 160-hour course or an OCI fits into seven weeks, so settle the plan with your advisor before a preceptor commits to that summer.

Second, from August 23, 2027 the FNP becomes a 43.0-credit semester program with four clinical courses: NURS 7600 through NURS 7602, then NURS 7604. FNP V drops out, and the 2027–28 catalog gives no clinical hours for any of the four, so whether the 720-hour total carries over is still unpublished. NURS 7604 keeps the pediatric focus on infants, children and adolescents.

A fall semester runs roughly 14 weeks plus finals, so a fall preceptor is signing up for late August through early December rather than late September. Advisors are drawing up a personal transition plan for each continuing student. The semester switch lays out the new calendar.

We build FNP placements around the whole lifespan, not one quarter at a time. A placement advisor maps which preceptor covers your adult courses and which covers the pediatric one, then searches near you for NPs, CNMs and physicians who clear Drexel's bar. Each candidate's license, board certification and time in practice are confirmed before you send a single introduction.

Your file for Drexel comes together in one pass: the clinician's CV and credentials, the name of the person at the practice who can sign Drexel's affiliation agreement, and the practice's onboarding checklist. Drexel approves every preceptor and site; we make sure what lands on its desk is complete and fits its rules from the start. When a preceptor pulls out mid-quarter, the replacement search starts right away. See how the service runs on how it works, or send your details through the form on this page.