Excelsior preceptor and practice-experience FAQ

They are close, but Excelsior's official word is mentor. In its School of Nursing, the person who guides your practice experience is a mentor, an individual with a master's degree or higher and expertise in your specialization who volunteers, subject to faculty approval. Some students call this a preceptor out of habit, but the graduate work is indirect care, not a patient-care rotation, so mentor is the accurate term.

Practice experience is Excelsior's term for the applied, mentor-supervised hours you complete around an independent project. At the graduate level it is indirect care built into each MSN capstone. Excelsior states there is no clinical instruction provided in any program in its School of Nursing, so you arrange the mentor, the site, and the project yourself and faculty approves them.

Each Excelsior MSN capstone requires 135 practice-experience hours: Nursing Education in NUR676, Nursing Informatics in NUR686, and Nursing Leadership and Administration in NUR646. The hours are built around an independent project you complete with a volunteer mentor. Confirm the current figure against your Excelsior catalog.

ACEN. Excelsior's bachelor's and master's nursing programs are accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN), not CCNE. The associate program is approved by the New York State Board of Regents, and the university is institutionally accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

No. Excelsior University offers no nurse practitioner program, no APRN track, and no DNP. Its graduate nursing is indirect care only: MS in Nursing Education, MS in Nursing Informatics, and MS in Nursing Leadership and Administration, plus RN-to-MS bridges into those three. There is no direct patient-care rotation and no prescriptive practicum.

No. Excelsior arranges the in-person clinicals for its prelicensure hybrid BSN in St. Petersburg, Florida, and schedules the AAS clinical experiences itself, so those students do not need us. We help with the graduate MSN capstone practice experiences and the RN-to-BS practice hours, which Excelsior requires you to arrange on your own.

The RN-to-BS in Nursing adds roughly 90 practice-experience hours: about 45 in NUR448 Community Health and about 45 of direct practice in the NUR462 capstone, with NUR342 using a live adult volunteer. You typically arrange these in your own workplace or community, and we can help you set them up.

An individual with a master's degree or higher and expertise in your specialization who volunteers to serve as your resource, subject to Excelsior faculty approval. Depending on your track the best fit may be a nurse educator, an informatics leader, or an administrator, and the mentor need not always be a nurse as long as the expertise and the graduate degree fit and faculty approves.

We charge a flat fee per placement covering the mentor, the site, and project support, and you pay only once your mentor and site are confirmed. We do not price per clinical hour, because Excelsior has no nurse-practitioner rotations for that model to fit, and we never pay the volunteer mentor. See our pricing page for the full detail.

Start four to six months before your capstone term. Confirming a mentor, securing the site, clearing any affiliation agreement, and finishing CastleBranch checks all take time, and faculty approval cannot be rushed. The earlier you start, the more likely your capstone begins on schedule.

An affiliation agreement is a contract between your practice-experience site and the program that allows you to complete hours there. Excelsior requires you to arrange the site, and many sites will not host a student without one. We coordinate the agreement between the site and the program so it does not stall your start.

CastleBranch is the compliance service that manages your background check, drug screen, and immunization records for the practice experience. Sites generally require clearance before you begin, so it is part of getting your hours started on time. We shepherd your CastleBranch requirements alongside the mentor and site so nothing is left to the last minute.

Excelsior arranges those itself, so we do not serve them. The prelicensure hybrid BSN clinicals are scheduled by Excelsior in St. Petersburg, Florida, and the AAS clinical experiences are also arranged by the university. Our market is the MSN capstones and the RN-to-BS practice hours that Excelsior leaves to you.

No. We help you meet Excelsior's requirements for the mentor, site, and project; we do not act for Excelsior.

Excelsior Preceptor is a placement service for capstone mentors and practice-experience sites. Tell us your track, whether nursing education, informatics, or leadership, and your area, and we match you with a qualified mentor who fits your project. We handle the outreach and the affiliation paperwork so you are not searching on your own.

Yes. We are an independent matching service for capstone mentors and practice-experience placements, not the university and not a directory. Students reach us when a suitable mentor is hard to secure, and we vet, coordinate, and confirm the match before it is finalized.

Often, yes. Share your location and the setting your track calls for, and we look for a local organization or practice first. Because MSN capstone work is largely project based, much of it can be supervised remotely, so we can arrange a compliant virtual practice experience wherever your program allows it.

Plan ahead and give us your project aims and required hours. We align a mentor to your track and objectives, confirm the setting and supervision, and complete the affiliation agreement before your term, which is far faster than asking colleagues one by one.

We place. Once a mentor agrees to guide your capstone through the timeline and hours you require, we complete the affiliation paperwork and hand you a confirmed practice-experience placement, not a name to track down yourself.