Drexel nursing from Louisiana: open programs and Louisiana's rules

Drexel decides admission by home state and publishes a separate list for each program group. Read for a Louisiana address, those lists come out like this:

• Closed: every MSN NP track, all nine of them, and each NP certificate, the Emergency/Trauma NP certificate included.
• Closed: the online post-master's DNP.
• Open: the online RN-to-BSN, which has no campus visits and 36 planned clinical practice hours.
• Open: the Nursing Education and Leadership MSNs, which Drexel groups as advanced-role programs, each with a 160-hour practicum.

Drexel words these limits as current rather than permanent. Email sara@drexel.edu about your specific program before applying, and see Drexel state authorization for every state on each list.

Most boards look at the student and the license. Louisiana's also looks hard at the school. LAC 46:XLVII.3539 treats undergraduate and graduate programs alike: if one is administered from outside Louisiana, it needs the Louisiana State Board of Nursing's approval before it teaches a course or runs a clinical experience in the state.

The request is heavy. A letter lists the clinical agencies and units, backed by the curriculum, syllabi, catalog, NCLEX and certification pass data, and forms on faculty qualifications and clinical facilities. It has to reach the Board at least six months ahead of the start date, and the school needs home-state approval, regional accreditation and a national nursing accreditation the Board recognizes. An approval holds for a maximum of three years, and the school may petition for renewal.

After approval, graduate programs owe the Board a clinical experience spreadsheet within two weeks of each student's start.

The same rule covers who teaches. Out-of-state faculty instructing in Louisiana need a Louisiana RN or APRN license of their own, a graduate nursing degree and two-plus years in clinical practice. In precepted clinicals, faculty confer weekly with student and preceptor and come to the site at least once a term, and a Board-approved preceptorship caps each faculty member at nine APRN students on any clinical day.

AANP rates Louisiana reduced practice: NPs there keep a physician collaboration, regulated by the state, for at least part of what they do. No Louisiana preceptor incentive turned up in our research.

Ochsner Health, LCMC Health, FMOL Health, Baton Rouge General and Willis-Knighton Health are large employers across the New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette and Shreveport-Bossier City areas. They're examples of where clinicians practice, not Drexel sites.

Drexel's RN-to-BSN places its 36 clinical practice hours in three quarter courses: 24 in NURS 342, 8 in NURS 347 and 4 in NURS 348. The 2027–28 semester catalog renumbers them NURS 3103, NURS 4011 and NURS 4012 and keeps the 36-hour program total. Drexel says the hours reflect your own professional interests; who arranges and supervises them isn't published.

Because Louisiana's rule reaches undergraduate programs as well as graduate ones, ask Drexel how it handles those hours for a Louisiana student before you line up a setting. The course breakdown is on Drexel RN-to-BSN clinical hours.

For RN-to-BSN students, we match a Louisiana setting to each of the three courses and gather what Drexel and the Board will want to see: the agency, the unit and the clinician supervising you. For a Nursing Education or Leadership MSN, we find the preceptor for your 160 practicum hours and have the credentials ready.

Leaving Louisiana for a state Drexel admits for NP study, or moving into Louisiana partway through? Tell Drexel first. Then we build the search around your track, your new state's rules and Drexel's preceptor standard, and Drexel receives a file with nothing missing. Send us your details to begin.