NKU's 7-week sessions: one clinical at a time, six starts a year

NKU keeps a semester calendar but splits each fall, spring and summer semester into two accelerated 7-week sessions. The online MSN runs year-round, including summers; the 2025-26 graduate catalog describes 7-week terms for all MSN classes.

The post-master's DNP follows the same rhythm for its project courses, DNP 881 to DNP 884, each seven weeks long. The exception is DNP 897, the continuing-credit practicum course taken only if needed, which runs 16 weeks.

Preceptors plan from the same calendar. NKU's preceptor home page lists clinical terms from Fall 1 2026 through Summer 2 2028, so a clinician can check exact weeks before agreeing to take you. Sending a preceptor the exact session name and dates, rather than a month, makes a yes far easier to give.

Start and end dates below come from NKU's preceptor home page, except the Summer 2 start, which comes from the calendar on NKU's online program pages. That calendar also supplies the application deadlines, which apply to new students starting the program, not to preceptor submissions.

Preceptor information follows a separate clock: at least 30 days before each clinical, with 90 highly recommended. Our placement deadlines page counts both dates back from every start.

NKU's graduate catalog limits each 7-week session to no more than two didactic classes, or one didactic class and one clinical. The 2025-26 catalog adds plainly that two clinicals in the same session are not allowed.

Clinical courses carry an L after the number, and each NP clinical is a single credit. In NKU's Fall 2024 course sequences, a clinical often shares its session with one didactic course: the FNP path pairs MSN 650L with MSN 621 and MSN 655L with the MSN 630 capstone, the AGACNP path pairs MSN 663L with MSN 633, and the PMHNP path pairs MSN 669L with MSN 676.

The limit keeps workloads realistic, but it also means your clinical hours cannot be spread across two courses at once. Each rotation has to deliver its own hours inside its own seven weeks. Course order and prerequisites are covered on our prerequisites page.

NKU's preceptor requirements put each rotation at approximately 125 to 150 student hours and ask for a preceptor who can host you on two or three days of every week. The 2024-25 catalog lists 150 direct patient-care hours for several AGACNP clinicals and 125 for MSN 669L.

Divided by seven, the load lands near 18 to 21 clinical hours weekly by our arithmetic, on top of any didactic course sharing the session. Each syllabus sets the weekly floor and ceiling for its own course.

A short session leaves little room to recover lost days. A preceptor's vacation week or a late approval email costs a larger share of a 7-week rotation than it would in a 16-week semester, which is why the start date matters so much.

In NKU's standard NP sequences, most clinical courses run in consecutive sessions. The Fall 2024 FNP path runs MSN 652L, MSN 653L, MSN 654L and MSN 655L in four straight sessions, and the AGACNP and PMHNP paths run all five of their clinicals back to back.

The breaks between sessions are short. By our count from NKU's dates, Fall 1 ends 12 days before Fall 2 starts, Spring 1 ends 17 days before Spring 2, Spring 2 ends 10 days before Summer 1, and Summer 1 ends three days before Summer 2. The longest gap we counted is the winter break, at 31 days.

Session starts are also close together: 49 to 82 days apart by our count, every one under 90. So NKU's recommended 90-day line for your next clinical passes before your current one even begins, and the line for the clinical after that lands during or just after the current rotation. Planning several sessions ahead is the only way to stay inside it.

• Nursing Education: the 2025-26 sequence runs 11 sessions, with MSN 614L (listed there as MSN 614) in the eighth and the MSN 670 capstone last.
• Nurse Executive Leadership: the 2025-26 sequence also runs 11 sessions, ending with the MSN 631L capstone.
• Post-master's DNP: four 7-week project courses, plus the 16-week DNP 897 only if you need more hours toward the 1,000.
• RN-to-BSN: the 2025-26 schedule lists the leadership practicum, now numbered NRP 478P, in every session, so its timing follows your own course plan.

These tracks have fewer clinical courses than the NP paths, but each one still sits inside a single 7-week session, so the preceptor search for MSN 614L, MSN 670 or MSN 631L runs on the same timetable. Every track's hour totals are on our clinical hours page.

A 7-week calendar rewards students who plan past the next session. A placement advisor maps your remaining L courses to their sessions, sets a 90-day target for each, and starts lining up the next preceptor before your current rotation even begins.

Where one preceptor can take you for consecutive courses, we confirm it early; where the track needs a new setting, such as PMHNP age groups or FNP specialty time, we plan the switch. Every request reaches NKU with the preceptor's paperwork finished and the site contact named. Tell us your next session with the form below, or see how a late start affects your timeline on our delayed graduation page.