What Azusa Pacific's Graduate Placement Team handles

Who sits on APU's placement side

APU's documents use several names for placement staff, and the names drift from one document to the next. Read them as overlapping roles inside one placement function, not as separate offices you must visit in turn.

Faculty and administrators work alongside them. Clinical faculty approve specialty clinics and step in when a rotation runs into trouble, and a department chair is the one who strips hours logged at an unapproved site.

What the team does after you propose a preceptor

1. Reach out to review the placementFiling a request form prompts the Graduate Placement Team to contact you, go over the details and confirm them.
2. Vet the preceptorAPU's 2023-24 guidelines have the coordinator check any preceptor a student puts forward and arrange a general liability contract for the placement.
3. Secure the affiliation agreementThe coordinator obtains the organization's agreement with APU. When the clinic has none, this tends to be the longest wait; see affiliation agreements.
4. Brief the preceptorAPU's practicum guidelines name the coordinator as the person a preceptor hears from first: the one who sends out the Preceptor Handbook and gets the Preceptor Agreement Form signed.
5. Confirm your requirementsBefore the placement moves forward, the team checks that your practicum requirements in CastleBranch or Complio are current.
6. Clear the site in writingA written approval from the placement coordinator is what finally lets you walk in, and both request forms say so.

Placement offers and the one-week reply

When the team lines up a site for you, it comes as an offer, and APU's 2023-24 guidelines allow one week to confirm it. Use that week well: look at the site, the schedule and the commute, send any questions early, and give your answer in writing.

The week carries weight beyond the offer. If a term later goes unplaced, the guidelines list conduct that forfeits the late-drop fee waiver, and two items on that list sit right here: turning down an offered placement, and letting the week pass without confirming. The drop rule page covers the rest of the list.

Offers follow APU's own priorities. The guidelines weigh whether a site suits your course level and patient population before they weigh distance, and they describe commutes of an hour or two each way as ordinary. When an offer sits far from home, the real question is whether the experience fits the course, because saying no has consequences.

How to make the team's work faster

• Get a program plan on file. The 2023-24 guidelines leave students without one out of placement planning altogether.
• Name a new preceptor early. Six to eight weeks before the semester gives the coordinator room for vetting and the liability contract.
• Keep compliance current. The team checks CastleBranch or Complio before clearing a site, and Fall 2026 requirements closed on August 1, 2026.
• Send a complete request. One form per preceptor, carrying the entity's legal name, whoever signs its contracts and someone in the front office to contact; our field-by-field request form guide explains every entry.
• Ask before adding units. APRN students need director or chair approval to take on extra clinical units, because placement staff and preceptors are shared across the program.
• Reply within days. Offers, document requests and scheduling questions all move faster when your answer comes back quickly.

Where the team's work meets yours

For MSN NP and CNS students, APU splits the work. Placement staff advise, approve and paper the placement; you look for a site close to home and bring it forward, which finding your own clinical site covers in detail. The team decides whether a site and preceptor are approved, handles the agreement with the organization, and tells you when you may start.

A few items skip you entirely. Per APU's student hub, when a site charges an onboarding fee for each student, that invoice goes to the School of Nursing. Other items belong to you alone: weekly hour entries in Medatrax, compliance that stays current all year, and a prompt call to faculty the moment a site starts to wobble, since leaving a site before faculty can intervene costs you the fee waiver.

Why APU students choose us alongside the placement team

APU's placement team works fastest when a proposal arrives with nothing missing, and a proposal with nothing missing is what we produce. We find a preceptor whose credential suits your course, close to where you live, confirm the preceptor's availability for the hours your term requires, and gather the items the team reviews: license and credential, the organization's legal name, the authorized signer and the office manager.

We also find out early whether the clinic already has an agreement with APU, which tells you and the coordinator how much lead time to plan for. The coordinator's written clearance is the final word, and our role is to hand over a proposal that meets APU's rules on the first pass. When a preceptor withdraws partway through a term, our desk is still on call and starts the replacement search. The form below is where to start.

Questions APU students ask