Sacred Heart's week-10 deadline, and the dates every other track works to

Updated September 25, 2026 · Reviewed by the Sacred Heart Preceptor placement team

Online FNP students must have the next site and preceptor found, approved and filed on a Contract Request Form by week 10 of the prior course. PMHNP, CNL, Nursing Education and NMEL students work to dates the Clinical Placement Team publishes, RN-BSN students begin nine months ahead, and DNP students file their project site before NU 823 ends.

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Week 10 coming up?

Tell us your course and start date, and your placement advisor will map the weeks back from it.

Week 10of each FNP course, when the next placement is due

9 monthsRN-BSN lead time, and the longest a new affiliation agreement can take

How the FNP week-10 rule works

The FNP row of Sacred Heart's 2026-27 MSN and Post-MSN Certificate guide sets the clock: "By the end of Week 10 of NU 552 & in week 10 of all clinical courses" the placement work for the next course has to be complete.

Read it as a relay. Week 10 of NU 552 closes the file for NU 561. Week 10 of NU 561 closes the file for your next clinical course, and the pattern repeats through NU 606, NU 607 and NU 621 in the order your plan of study sets. Because NP semesters run 15 to 16 weeks, week 10 leaves roughly five or six weeks before the next course begins.

Complete means more than a clinician's verbal yes. By that week you need the site and preceptor identified, your academic advisor's sign-off, the preceptor's resume, license and board certification cleared by the MSN Online NP Programs Clinical Coordinator, and a Contract Request Form filed after that approval email arrives. The preceptor approval guide covers each review.

The same guide row covers the post-master's FNP certificate. Certificate students skip NU 552, and their compliance date is tied to week 10 of NU 550, so ask your academic advisor which week 10 governs your first placement.

Every placement deadline Sacred Heart publishes

The dates below come from the 2026-27 student guides. Only the FNP and RN-BSN rows give you a fixed point to count from; the other tracks depend on a date the Clinical Placement Team announces to your group.

Placement deadlines by Sacred Heart program, 2026-27 guides
Program	Next site and preceptor due	Where to look
Online MSN FNP	End of week 10 of `NU 552`, then week 10 of each clinical course for the course after it	MSN and Post-MSN Certificate guide, sec. 3.24
Post-master's FNP certificate	The FNP rule; your advisor confirms which course's week 10 covers the first placement	Same guide, FNP row
Online MSN PMHNP and post-master's PMHNP certificate	The Clinical Placement Team's published date	PMHNP clinical requirements Blackboard organization
Online MSN CNL, Nursing Education and NMEL	The Clinical Placement Team's published date	Graduate Nursing Clinical Requirements Blackboard organization
RN-BSN and RN-BSN-MSN	Nine months before the first clinical practice course	RN-BSN and RN-BSN-MSN guide, sec. 3.21
Hybrid BSN-to-DNP (FNP)	`NU 552` observation arranged by you; later courses set up with the Clinical Placement Coordinator before each course starts	FNP/DNP Hybrid guide, sec. 3.19
DNP project site, both DNP programs	Contract Request Form before the end of `NU 823`	FNP/DNP and PM-DNP guides

Compliance documents run on separate dates, beginning with week 10 of NU 552 for MSN NP students. The Health Account page lists them program by program.

A work-back plan for a 16-week FNP course

Week 10 is the cutoff, not the plan. This is how we pace an FNP placement inside the course that comes before it. The week numbers are our planning targets, not Sacred Heart rules.

Working back from week 10 (our planning targets)
Course week	Done by then	Why
Before week 1	A short list of sites that see the population your next course needs	`NU 561` and `NU 621` need adult primary care, `NU 606` children, `NU 607` women's health
Weeks 1 to 3	A preceptor who has said yes, plus the CV, license and board certification	Approval reviews documents, not promises
Weeks 3 to 5	Academic advisor approval requested; the site's contract contact confirmed	The Contract Request Form asks who handles contracts at the site
Weeks 5 to 8	Documents with the MSN Online NP Programs Clinical Coordinator; health system sign-off if the preceptor works for a partnering system	A partnering system approves before Sacred Heart does
Weeks 8 to 9	Contract Request Form filed after the approval email	Leaves a buffer before the cutoff
Week 10	All of the above complete	The published deadline
Weeks 11 to 16	Agreement confirmed, Health Account current, clearance email in hand	No clearance email, no clinical day

One situation breaks this pace: a site with no Sacred Heart contract yet. A new affiliation agreement "can take up to nine (9) months", so a brand-new site needs its Contract Request Form long before the course that precedes it even starts. Our affiliation agreements guide explains existing versus new agreements.

The mistake that costs a semester: treating week 10 as the starting line when the site is new to Sacred Heart. Ask every site early whether it has signed an affiliation agreement with Sacred Heart before.

PMHNP, CNL, Nursing Education and NMEL: the Clinical Placement Team's dates

These tracks work without a week-10 formula. PMHNP, CNL, Nursing Education and NMEL students all work to "the published deadline created by the Clinical Placement Team". No calendar dates appear on Sacred Heart's public pages, so the date reaches you through Sacred Heart's channels: your SHU email, your track's clinical requirements Blackboard organization and your academic advisor.

Treat your SHU email as part of the deadline. The guides expect clinical and compliance emails to be answered within 48 to 72 hours, and the Clinical Contract & Compliance Coordinator writes to that account when an affiliation agreement runs into a problem.

CNL, Nursing Education and NMEL practicums sit in eight-week modules, and each practicum-and-capstone pair (NU 680 with NU 681, NU 690 with NU 691, NU 672 with NU 673) has to be split across modules. PMHNP students have a population rule to plan for as well: NU 572 needs at least 100 of its hours with patients under 18, so the site for that course has to see children and adolescents.

RN-BSN nine months out, and the two DNP clocks

RN-BSN and RN-BSN-MSN students get the longest runway. The guide wants potential preceptors and sites identified, and the preceptor's CV and RN license in your academic advisor's hands, "nine months prior to the first clinical practice course", which matches the longest a new agreement may take. The clinical courses, NU 376 and NU 387, run eight weeks each. On the accelerated track, which can be done in as little as 10 months, that nine-month mark falls close to your first term.

The hybrid BSN-to-DNP runs on a different model. You arrange the eight-to-ten-hour NU 552 observation yourself at a site with an active agreement; each later clinical course is arranged in advance with the FNP/DNP Clinical Placement Coordinator, under semester placement deadlines the guide mentions but does not publish. A missed deadline can end a tentative placement. The FNP/DNP clinical courses page covers that path.

For the DNP project, both DNP guides want the Contract Request Form (and, in the post-master's DNP, the practice mentor agreement form) before the end of NU 823. New contracts may take six to eight months, so the FNP/DNP guide points to NU 821 as the time to start, while the post-master's guide points to NU 823.

Why Sacred Heart students hand us the calendar

We plan from your deadline backward. Give us your program, your next clinical course and its start date, and we set target dates for a committed preceptor, a complete document packet and a filed Contract Request Form, aiming to land all three well before week 10 or the Clinical Placement Team's date.

We search in your own community for a preceptor whose license and board certification fit your track, confirm the site's contract contact, and ask whether the site already holds a Sacred Heart agreement, so the file that reaches your advisor and the NP clinical coordinator is complete the first time. If a preceptor withdraws after the deadline, we start the replacement search right away; see what to do when a preceptor drops out.

Questions Sacred Heart students ask

When is week 10 in the fall 2026 FNP semester?

Sacred Heart's registrar lists the MSN/FNP Special Trimester as August 31 to December 12, 2026. Counting straight from August 31, week 10 begins around November 2. Spring 2027 starts January 4, putting week 10 near March 8, and late spring starts April 26, near June 28. Breaks can shift the count, so your course faculty's schedule has the final word.

Can I submit my preceptor before week 10?

Yes. The guide sets week 10 as the latest point, not the earliest. Filing early is the only way to give a site without a Sacred Heart affiliation agreement the months it may need, and it leaves the NP clinical coordinator time to ask for anything missing from your preceptor's documents before the cutoff arrives.

Does the week-10 rule apply to PMHNP students?

Not for placements. For PMHNP students, the placement date comes from the Clinical Placement Team. Their compliance date does use week 10, though: week 10 of NU 552 in the MSN, or week 10 of NU 509 in the post-master's certificate. Two clocks run at once, so keep both on your calendar.

What happens if I miss the placement deadline?

Registration and attendance both depend on approval. Sacred Heart does not let you register for a clinical course without an approved site and preceptor, and you cannot attend without the clearance email, so a missed date can push the course to a later term. FNP students who need more time for hours can use NU 600 Continuous Enrollment; see delayed graduation.

My preceptor backed out after week 10. What now?

Tell Clinical Placement immediately. The guide then calls for a fresh Contract Request Form naming the replacement, and you stay out of clinical until an updated clearance letter arrives. Start the new search at once, because the replacement preceptor goes through the same approvals. The Cleared for Clinical page covers changes in detail.

CalendarRegistration and modulesWhen Sacred Heart University opens registration (April, October, February), what months modules M1 to M6 cover, and why clinical courses wait for approval.FormContract Request Form (CRF)The Sacred Heart University Contract Request Form: the six program versions, the fields it asks for, when to submit it and what happens after you send it.AgreementAffiliation agreementsWhy a new Sacred Heart University clinical affiliation agreement can take up to nine months, how existing agreements help and how to plan around the wait.CourseNU 552 Advanced Health AssessmentNU 552 Advanced Health Assessment for NP at Sacred Heart University: residency 1 and week-10 checkpoints online, and 8 to 10 observation hours in the FNP/DNP.UrgentNeed a preceptor fastWeek 10 or a course start is close and you still need a Sacred Heart University preceptor. Why existing agreements matter and what we do in the first days.

Last checked 2026-09-25

We check these pages against Sacred Heart's own catalog, program pages and 2026-27 student guides. Your student guide, your academic advisor and your course faculty have the final word.

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Tell us your Sacred Heart program, your city and your next clinical course. We find preceptors who fit the course and prepare what your advisor, the NP clinical coordinator and the Contract Request Form ask for, early enough for the affiliation agreement.

Preceptors matched to the course: primary care of adults, women and children for FNP, psychiatric care across the lifespan for PMHNP
Preceptor CV, license, board certification and the site's contract contact ready before your week-10 deadline
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