Drexel's online RN-to-BSN: settings for 36 clinical practice hours

The RN-to-BSN Completion program is fully online, with 10-week quarters that mix self-paced work and live sessions. Drexel Online says there are no on-campus requirements. The 2026–27 quarter catalog lists 180.0 quarter credits, with up to 135.0 accepted in transfer, and the nursing core is ten courses of 4.5 credits each. The accelerated plan finishes that core in four terms, which Drexel Online calls one year. The 2027–28 semester version is 120 credits.

To be admitted you need an RN license, though Drexel can accept you provisionally pending your NCLEX result, plus a 2.0 college GPA, 60 semester hours of prerequisites at C or better and graduation from an ACEN- or CNEA-accredited program. You can start in Winter 2027, Spring 2027 or Fall 2027, and Drexel Online lists December 11, 2026 as the next deadline. Some classes also use Shadow Health virtual-patient software for simulated patient work.

The catalog counts 36 hours of planned clinical practice across the whole program, split over three nursing core courses.

Under the 2027–28 catalog the three courses keep their titles but become NURS 3103, NURS 4011 and NURS 4012, worth 3.0 semester credits apiece. The semester catalog keeps the 36-hour program total but doesn't split it by course. The other nursing core courses carry no clinical hours. In the accelerated plan NURS 347 and NURS 348 share the spring term, so you may need two different settings in the same ten weeks, one for teaching and one for population health. Spread evenly, even the 24 hours in NURS 342 come to under three hours a week, which makes it easier to fit the time around a full-time nursing job. The RN-to-BSN clinical hours page looks at each course's hours in more depth.

Drexel Online frames the hours around your professional growth and your own needs and interests. That wording suggests you have a say in where they happen. What the pages don't state is who arranges the experiences, who supervises them, what that person must hold, or whether Drexel requires an agreement with the host. Settle those points in the first weeks of each course, before you ask a host for time.

Questions to put to your course faculty early

• Who arranges the setting: you, the course faculty or Drexel?
• Who can supervise or sign off the hours, and which credentials they need.
• Whether your own employer counts, and whether it must be outside your usual unit.
• Whether the host must sign anything with Drexel, and whether any compliance items apply.
• How the hours are documented and submitted.

One more note: Drexel's CNHP RN-to-BSN page still mentions NURS 325, which isn't in the current curriculum, so go by the catalog when the two differ.

Each course title points to the kind of setting that fits. NURS 342 centers on inclusive and equitable health assessment, so a setting with a varied patient population, where you can practice assessment and health promotion, suits its 24 hours. NURS 347 is about educating patients, professionals and the public, which fits a patient education program, a community class or a staff education session. NURS 348 turns to global and population health, where a public health department, a community health center or an outreach program fits its four hours.

Confirm each idea with your course faculty before you ask a host for their time. In Philadelphia, Drexel's nurse-managed health center on 11th Street offers clinical experience to Drexel students from across the health professions; elsewhere, local community organizations are a natural starting point. The Philadelphia clinical sites page covers the region's larger systems and how they take students.

Five states are closed to the RN-to-BSN: Alabama, Minnesota, Nebraska, Washington and Wyoming. Residents of New York and Maryland face no restriction. You need an active RN license to enroll, and Drexel warns that moving to another state can affect a student's ability to complete clinical requirements, so check with Drexel before a move. The state authorization page lists every program's exclusions.

Drexel moves to semesters on August 23, 2027, after a seven-week Summer 2027 transition term. If you start in Winter or Spring 2027, your clinical-hour courses may fall on either side of the change. Ask your advisor for your personal transition plan, which spells out the course numbers and terms that apply. The semester conversion page has the full calendar.

Thirty-six hours sounds small, but finding three willing hosts while working full time is real work, and we take that search off your plate. For each course we find a setting that fits its focus, from a clinic with a varied patient panel for health assessment to a community program for population health, and we check the fit against what your course faculty tell you before anyone commits.

Then we hand you what the host and Drexel need to say yes: the contact person, the supervising nurse's details and any onboarding steps the setting asks for. Your faculty and Drexel approve the plan, and we make sure the RN-to-BSN plan they see is complete and suits the course from the first read. If a host cancels, we are on call with another option. Start with the form here; how it works explains our steps.