Can't find a preceptor for your APU clinical course?

Where you stand: three situations

Timing decides which moves are still open, so find your row first.

Every row shares one rule: you may not attend a site, or log hours there, until APU clears it in writing.

Why APU searches stall

• The course needs a narrow preceptor. PMHNP courses need a psychiatrist or PMHNP; pediatric hours call for a children's practice, or a family practice seeing at least six children daily.
• The schedule is too tight. Weekend and evening slots are hard to come by, APU's guidelines warn, and family practice is the tightest.
• The easy leads are ruled out. Relatives, close friends and your own unit do not qualify under APU's preceptor rules.
• The clinic never signs. A willing clinician works at a site whose legal signer never answers, so no affiliation agreement follows.
• Hospital systems route through the school. Calls to large systems stall when they take requests only from a school's coordinator.
• Compliance is behind. A missing CastleBranch or Complio item can hold up a placement that was otherwise ready.

The first-third deadline, in brief

APU's 2023-24 guidelines set a firm edge: an unplaced student starts the drop inside the opening third of the semester, and anyone still enrolled with no site after that point takes a failing grade in the clinical course and its didactic partner. On Spring 2027's 16-week session, which runs January 4 to April 30, a third of the term is gone by mid-February. On an 8-week session it arrives far sooner.

The same guidelines let APU waive late-drop fees, with priority placement the next semester, when no site was found or a preceptor left for reasons unrelated to you. Refusing an offered placement or missing a document deadline rules that out. Confirm the current wording with your advisor; the rule, session by session, is on our no-placement drop rule page.

A recovery plan, step by step

1. Tell the placement team todayEmail APU's Clinical Placement Team at the address posted on the SON hub's advanced practice page. Name the course, the units and what you have tried, so APU's placement staff can start working on it.
2. Check your complianceConfirm every CastleBranch or Complio item is current, training modules included, so paperwork never holds a site up.
3. Widen the radiusAPU's guidelines treat a drive of an hour or two each way as normal. Add the next ring of cities before you give up on weekday options.
4. Widen the settingA family practice with enough young patients can carry pediatric hours, and a physician or a PA with an on-site physician can precept most NP courses, as long as one semester overall is with an NP.
5. Revisit your networkFormer coworkers now practicing elsewhere, clinicians from past rotations, and your employer's other units, with a written division of duties signed by the employer.
6. Have the site details readyKnow what APU will ask before anyone agrees: who the preceptor is, with credential and email; the clinic's registered name and who signs for it; and the office manager's contact. A yes that comes with those moves straight to the request form.
7. Make the drop decision on timeIf the first third is near and nothing has cleared, talk to your advisor and file the drop yourself; APU's catalog is clear that not attending does not remove a class.

What to tell a practice when you call

Busy practices decide faster when the ask is concrete. Name APU and the course number, say how many hours the term needs (at 45 hours per clinical unit, 3 units works out to 135; see the hours rule), give your start date and the days you can attend, and explain what the preceptor takes on: supervising and evaluating you, with APU supplying a preceptor handbook, a Preceptor Agreement Form and an end-of-semester evaluation by email.

Then mention the clinic's part, an affiliation agreement with APU, and ask up front who signs contracts for the practice. That single question heads off a common stall: a clinician who agrees while the real signer sits elsewhere.

If the term is lost anyway

A dropped course is a setback, not the end of the program. Sit down with your advisor and redo your program plan at once; under APU's guidelines, a student with no current plan is left out of the clinical placement count. APU allows eight years to finish a graduate program, and priority placement, where it applies, gives you a head start on the next term.

Use the gap well. Start the next term's search at once so the request reaches APU well ahead of the notice point, and keep compliance current through the break. Our delayed graduation guide explains how a lost term ripples through your schedule, and need a preceptor fast covers short-notice searches.

How we get APU students unstuck

This is the situation our placement desk is built for. We take your course, units, region and deadline, search outward from home across every qualifying setting, and approach practices with the concrete ask above. Each yes comes with the details APU's request form needs and an early read on whether the clinic has an APU agreement, so your request is ready the day you file it.

If the term is already under way, we work against the first-third date with you and keep the search open until a site is cleared or the drop decision is made. Use the form below and choose the start option that matches where you are.

Questions APU students ask