Choosing a placement service as a Samford student: what it should do for you
A good placement service works inside Samford's process. It matches the preceptor to your exact NURG course, hands you site details ready for Samford's review and any new affiliation agreement, keeps compliance and onboarding on schedule, respects the state rules Samford applies, and has a plan for the day a preceptor steps away. Use the checklist below on any service you consider, us included.
Put us to the checklist
Send your Samford track, your next clinical course and your ZIP code. Your placement advisor answers with a course brief showing how we would search for that course.
Start from Samford's process
Samford holds the affiliation agreements, reviews every clinical rotation request and approves every preceptor and site. Those decisions stay with Samford whichever service you use, and any pitch that blurs that point misreads how Samford works. What a service can supply is the connection Samford's NP program pages call essential for a placement near home, delivered in a form Samford can review without chasing missing pieces.
No Samford page, current or archived, names or discusses placement companies, so the judgment is yours. The sections below turn Samford's own process into questions you can put to any service, and the answers show quickly whether it has read Samford's documents or is working from a template built for another school.
Course fit: does the service know your NURG course?
Samford's clinical courses differ in hours and patient population, and a generic search misses that. Ask which course a proposed preceptor is for and why the practice fits it.
| Course | Hours in the plans of study | What the practice should offer |
|---|---|---|
NURG 723 | 150 | Adult patients in primary care |
NURG 724 | 300 | Family practice across the lifespan, children included |
NURG 716, NURG 717, NURG 718 | 225, 225, 300 | FNP clinical settings across the BSN to DNP sequence; confirm each focus in the syllabus |
NURG 730 | 300 | The final FNP clinical; confirm setting rules with your faculty |
NURG 767 | 75 (the catalog says a minimum of 60) | Psychotherapy under a Samford approved preceptor |
NURG 788, NURG 789, NURG 790 | 150, 225, 300 | Mental health care settings for the PMHNP sequence |
A service that knows these figures, including where Samford's documents disagree, is working from Samford's plans. Clinical hours has the full breakdown.
Site details ready for an affiliation agreement
Samford adds agreements based on preceptor availability and proximity, so a site new to Samford is normal, especially outside the Southeast. A capable service tells you early whether a site is likely to need one and hands over what the request requires.
What you should receive
- The practice's legal name and physical address.
- The name and role of the person who signs contracts for the site.
- The preceptor's credential, license state and specialty.
- A weekly schedule inside Samford's 10 to 20 hour range and the term dates.
- Whether the practice reports hosting Samford students before, for you to confirm with Samford.
Ask how early the service starts. A new agreement adds review on both sides, and some health systems close student requests a full term ahead. Affiliation agreements explains the request.
Compliance and site onboarding
A placement moves only as fast as your clearance. The graduate handbook's list runs from the Health Data Record, immunizations, a TB test and the fall flu shot to an AHA BLS course with hands-on practice, a background check, random drug screens and proof of health coverage, all refreshed before each semester's registration. Sites may add fingerprinting or more screening at the student's expense, and a site may turn away an unvaccinated student even after Samford grants an exemption.
A good service asks about your compliance status at the start and sets the site's onboarding steps against your start date. It should also know where Samford's documents disagree: the handbook makes personal liability insurance mandatory, whereas the catalog labels it optional though strongly advised. Compliance requirements has the full list.
State rules Samford applies
Sixteen states are closed to Samford's NP applicants, whether by residence or by a license held only there, and the licensure disclosure flags the same sixteen. The handbook also asks for an RN license both where you practice and wherever your clinical hours take place, and it cautions that state rules can lead Samford to turn down a rotation request. A student who moves has to tell the program coordinator.
A service should therefore ask where you live and where you hold a license before it searches, and propose sites only in states that work for both. The state question also shapes preceptor choice, since the clinician must hold a license in the state where the practice sits. Clinicals outside Alabama covers the details.
Replacement support and warning signs
Preceptors change jobs, take leave and sometimes stop teaching, and nothing Samford publishes covers a preceptor who leaves partway through a course. Ask any service who you call when that happens, how a replacement is matched to the same course and hours, and what its fee covers in that case. A clear answer up front shows a service that has planned for it.
Warning signs
- Promises that Samford will approve a preceptor or site; only Samford decides.
- Promised start dates or a promised number of days to a match.
- A preceptor offered because they are available, not because the practice fits the course.
- Encouragement to begin clinical hours before Samford approves the rotation.
- A site in a state where your license is not valid or that Samford excludes.
- Vague answers about what the fee covers.
How we answer each item on this list
We built our service around this checklist, because it is Samford's process written as questions. Your placement advisor begins with the course number and the hours your plan of study gives it, looks in your own community first, hands you clinician and practice information shaped for the rotation request with the agreement question answered early, keeps compliance and site onboarding on your term's timeline, and remains reachable all semester, ready to search again if a preceptor leaves. Samford still makes every decision; our work is to make each one easy to reach.
How it works shows the steps in order, and own search vs placement help compares the routes fairly. When you are ready, send your course through the placement request form.
Questions Samford students ask
Does Samford recommend a particular placement service?
Samford's public pages do not name or rank placement companies, and none of its handbooks addresses them. That leaves the choice with you, so judge any service against Samford's own process: course fit, site details ready for an agreement, compliance, state rules and a replacement plan. Samford's review of each preceptor and site applies either way.
Can a placement service submit my rotation request to Samford?
The request is the student's to submit through the route in the NP Clinical Manual. A service's part is to assemble the clinician and practice information the request needs and to field questions from the preceptor or the office. Your Samford e-mail account stays the channel for anything Samford sends back.
What should a placement service tell me before I sign up?
Which course it will search for, how it decides a practice fits, whether it plans for new affiliation agreements, how it handles compliance and onboarding, what happens if a preceptor withdraws, and what its fee covers. Specific answers to each are a good sign; vague ones are a reason to keep asking.
When should a Samford student contact a placement service?
A full term before the clinical course is our planning advice, and earlier for a 300-hour course or a site new to Samford. Samford publishes no lead time, and any rotation request cutoff lives in the NP Clinical Manual. A later start is still workable; see can't find a preceptor.
Can a placement service help Samford nurse anesthesia or BSN students?
Samford places those students itself: nurse anesthesia clinical sites are assigned by the program, and BSN clinical sites, units and preceptors are selected by the school. A service can help with planning, compliance timing and questions around those placements, but the placement itself comes from Samford.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against Samford's own program pages, plans of study, the 2026-27 Graduate Nursing Student Handbook and Alabama rules. Your course, your program coordinator and Graduate Student Services have the final word.
Samford says connections are essential. We are the connection.
Tell us your Samford track, where you live and when your next clinical course starts. We find preceptors near you who fit the course and prepare the details Samford needs to approve the rotation, including a new affiliation agreement where one is needed.
- Preceptors matched to the course: adult primary care for
NURG 723, family practice across the lifespan forNURG 724, psychiatric care forNURG 788 - Preceptor, license and site details ready for your clinical rotation request
- In your own community, anywhere Samford accepts you and your RN license is valid
Start your placement plan
Program, city and start date is all we need to begin.