Your RN license, the compact and where NKU clinicals can happen

Every NKU program that sends students into clinicals ties admission to a current license in the state where you practice. The wording shifts a little from program to program.

NKU's public pages set no separate rule requiring an RN license in the state where a rotation takes place. What they do require is that your preceptor, and therefore the site where that preceptor works, sits in an NKU-approved state.

NKU's preceptor requirements pair the license rule with a location rule: an active, unencumbered license, and a practice located in a current NKU-approved state. The preceptor must also be employed at the practicum site. Physician assistants can precept only where the state allows it.

Which states count depends on your program. NKU's state authorization table covers the MSN and post-master's certificates, and a separate admissions rule limits the NP programs to 11 states. The state authorization guide explains the table and its conflicts, and the NP admission states guide shows how that list has grown.

A multistate license from a compact state lets a nurse practice as an RN in the other compact states. Here is where each of NKU's NP admission states stands, from NCSBN's compact map.

Greater Cincinnati spans three states, and NKU's Highland Heights campus sits seven miles from Cincinnati. A Northern Kentucky student holding a Kentucky multistate license who rotates at a clinic across the river is working inside the compact, and Ohio appears on every NKU list that matters to NP students. The guide for NKU students in Ohio covers that state in detail.

Illinois, Michigan and Nevada work differently. They are on NKU's NP admission list but outside the compact, so a license from another state does not carry over. If a rotation would fall in one of those states and you are licensed elsewhere, ask that state's board of nursing what a student in an APRN clinical needs, and ask Contracts & Compliance how NKU handles it.

Each NKU MSN program page warns that a change of residence to another state could affect your status in the program, and asks that your advisor and concentration coordinator hear about it immediately. NKU's licensure disclosure goes further: in a restricted state, you might be unable to finish the field placements the program requires.

Before a move, check three things: whether the new state is on NKU's table for your program, whether your license carries over or needs endorsement there, and whether a preceptor in that state can meet NKU's location rule. NKU's disclosure puts the duty to check with the licensing board on the student.

NKU admits you on a current, unencumbered license, and clinical sites expect it to stay that way for every rotation. Renewal dates can land in the middle of a 7-week session, so put yours on the same calendar you use for compliance items; the clinical compliance overview lists everything else NKU checks.

After graduation, NKU's School of Nursing handles verification forms, such as education verification for a board of nursing or a certification of clinical hours, as graduate form requests with a per-form fee. The School's graduate forms page lists the current process.

Every preceptor we propose is checked against your license state and your program's approved states before you hear a name. Students near a state line get options on both sides of it, since Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana share the compact, and students licensed in Illinois, Michigan or Nevada get a search focused inside their own state.

The preceptor's license, CV or resume and signed Preceptor Responsibilities form then go into your request ready for NKU's review. The step-by-step service overview shows the rest, and the form below gets it started.