What shapes the cost of your NKU placement

Each NKU placement is priced to the search it takes. These are the inputs a placement advisor weighs when preparing yours.

• Track. FNP primary care, AGACNP hospital and PMHNP psychiatric rotations each draw on a different pool of preceptors.
• Hours. NKU describes a rotation as roughly 125 to 150 hours; Nursing Education needs 200 in total and Nurse Executive Leadership 100.
• Specialty. Settings with fewer eligible preceptors, or a patient population NKU asks you to cover, take longer to source.
• Location. Your home state and metro decide how many clinicians who meet NKU's rules sit within driving distance.
• Timing. A session starting close to NKU's 30-day minimum calls for a compressed search; one 90 days or more away leaves room.
• Number of rotations. Quoting a single clinical is a different job from planning every rotation left on your sequence.

The sections below explain each factor, so you can see roughly where your own rotation sits before you ask.

NP rotations carry the most hours. NKU's current program pages list 750 clinical hours for the MSN FNP, AGACNP and PMHNP and for each post-master's NP certificate, spread across six FNP clinicals or five AGACNP or PMHNP clinicals. Non-NP tracks are lighter: 200 hours for Nursing Education (MSN 614L plus the MSN 670 capstone) and 100 for the Nurse Executive Leadership capstone, MSN 631L.

Preceptor type matters as much as the hour count. An AGACNP rotation needs an acute care hospital, a PMHNP rotation needs a PMHNP or psychiatrist, and a Nursing Education capstone needs an educator with a master's or higher in nursing education. Each rotation also asks the preceptor to host you two or three days a week for the full 7-week session. Our NKU clinical hours table sets every track side by side.

Some NKU rotations ask for a particular mix. NKU recommends PMHNP students gain hours with pediatric, adult and geriatric patients, which can mean finding a practice that sees children or adding a second preceptor. FNP specialty offices count for up to 125 hours, and AGACNP students may spend up to half their hours in emergency or urgent care.

A request for a narrow setting, such as a child and adolescent psychiatry clinic or a hospitalist group in a smaller town, takes more outreach than a general primary care office in a large metro. That extra work shows up in the quote, while an open-minded request for any eligible setting tends to move faster. The caps themselves are explained on our NKU clinical setting rules page.

NKU's NP programs take applications from 11 states, and every preceptor has to be located in a state NKU approves. Students near Cincinnati, Louisville, Indianapolis, Columbus or Atlanta usually sit close to many eligible clinicians; students in rural West Virginia or Nevada have fewer within reach, so the search covers more ground. A unit at your employer other than your own can shorten it, within NKU's rules for workplace clinicals. The NKU NP admission states page lists all eleven.

Timing works the same way. Starting 90 days or more before a session gives time for outreach, paperwork and a new affiliation agreement if the site needs one. Inside NKU's 30-day minimum, the search is compressed and leans on sites NKU can clear quickly; our need a preceptor fast page covers that case.

Before you commit, a placement advisor sends a written quote naming the rotation or rotations, the session for each and the work included: the preceptor search, the check against NKU's rules for your track, gathering the preceptor's documents, preparing your Medatrax self-placement request and backup support if a preceptor withdraws.

The quote comes with written terms for payment, changes and refunds, including any current offer. Read it, ask questions, and go ahead only when it makes sense for you. If you are planning several rotations, you can ask for the full sequence in one quote, which lets us line up preceptors session by session and keep the calendar in view. Questions that come up after you sign go to a placement advisor, who answers them in writing.

NKU bills its own charges through your student account, and none of them are part of our quote. NKU's class fee table attaches fees to each clinical course, including a liability insurance fee and a clinical lab fee. The PreCheck StudentCheck background check at admission is paid by the applicant, and certifying clinical hours after graduation is a School of Nursing form request with its own processing fee. NKU sets those amounts by academic year, so check its current table.

NKU also pays its preceptors, through a professional development provision issued after the term. Students do not pay NKU preceptors, so your quote from us covers our placement work only. For how the insurance fee works, see our NKU liability insurance page.