Your RN license and Olivet clinicals
Every Olivet Nazarene University graduate nursing track starts from a current, unencumbered RN license, and it has to stay that way through every clinical hour. If your license becomes encumbered, you tell the SON Clinical Coordinator, who tells your practicum site. Where you may train depends on Olivet's approved states as well as on your license.
Get your placement plan
Tell us your Olivet program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your Olivet course.
Current and unencumbered, from admission to the last clinical hour
Olivet checks your license at two points. At admission, each graduate program page, FNP, post-graduate FNP and NEL alike, lists an unencumbered US RN license among the entry requirements. Then the new-curriculum handbook's compliance list names a current, unencumbered RN license again, as an item you keep current through every practicum.
An unencumbered license is one with no disciplinary restrictions, conditions or probation attached to it. The handbook's standard covers the whole program, so what matters is the license you hold on each clinical day, not only the one you held when you applied.
RN-BSN students follow a related rule. Admission calls for an unencumbered RN license, and a student admitted before licensure may begin general education courses but has until the close of NRSG 302 to pass the NCLEX and hand over proof of licensure.
If your license becomes encumbered
The rule is direct. If your RN license becomes encumbered during the program, the handbook puts the first call on you: notify the SON Clinical Coordinator, who then lets your practicum site know. The duty to report starts with you, so report promptly rather than waiting for the site to learn of it another way.
What happens next depends on the site and on Olivet's own review, so the SON Clinical Coordinator and your Program Director are the people to guide it. More on what the coordinator does is on the SON Clinical Coordinator page.
A license can also be affected through the drug screen. Olivet sends a positive screen result to IDFPR, to the board that issued your license, or to both, as the drug screen page sets out.
If anything changes on your RN license mid-program, tell the SON Clinical Coordinator first. The coordinator passes it to your practicum site.
Where you train: Olivet's approved states
Your license governs where you may practice as a nurse. Olivet's disclosures govern where FNP practicum hours may happen, and the two rules work together. Olivet's FNP disclosure, dated March 12, 2026, sorts the country into 37 approved states plus DC and 13 that are not approved. For those 13, Olivet has yet to decide whether its FNP satisfies state licensure rules, and no practicum hours may be completed in them.
Living in an approved state does not open a not-approved one, and the same bar covers anyone changing into the FNP track or coming back to it. The PG-APRN and NEL pages also require practicum hours in an approved state, though the NEL pages give no state list. Check your state against the licensure disclosures and the FNP not-approved states.
Olivet adds a caution: a state may impose its own rules on clinical hours, on who qualifies to precept, or on paperwork before it licenses an APRN. Kansas is singled out for extra requirements, with questions sent to FNPpracticum@olivet.edu.
Holding a license where your clinical site is
Olivet's program pages ask for an unencumbered US RN license without spelling out which state must issue it when your clinical site sits across a state line. That detail belongs to the requirements course for your track in Canvas, and the SON Clinical Coordinator can confirm it for your situation.
The state board of nursing is the other half of the answer. If you plan clinicals near a border, for example from Kankakee County into Indiana, check what that state's board expects of a student training there before the preceptor is confirmed. Our state guides point you to each board.
Settle the question before your first clinical day in a new state, and keep the answer in writing with your placement records. It is far easier to add a license before a course than to move a preceptor during one.
Your license and your preceptor's
License rules run in both directions. Olivet approves every preceptor, and for the RN-BSN the older handbook states the standard in full: a nurse holding an unencumbered license and at least a BSN, and for NRSG 467 someone who leads or manages now or has done so before.
For graduate tracks, the preceptor credentials Olivet expects sit inside your track's Canvas course, not on the public site, and states can add preceptor-qualification rules of their own. The preceptor requirements page covers what is published and where the rest lives.
Your own nursing experience matters as well. MSN applicants short of 2,000 RN hours must finish them by the end of NRSG 681 or face temporary withdrawal; the 2,000 RN hours rule has the details.
Moving or adding a license mid-program
If you move, tell the Online Advising Team (onlineadvising@olivet.edu) about the address change. Olivet asks this of FNP students, along with a look at the nursing board rules of any state they might relocate to. A move can change which state's rules apply to your clinicals and whether that state is on Olivet's approved list at all.
A new state license is worth confirming with the SON Clinical Coordinator before your next clinical course, so the license on file matches where you now practice and train. The moving page covers the rest of a mid-program move, from advising to your next placement. If the move falls between two clinical courses, plan the license step and the preceptor search together, since a preceptor in the new state cannot start with you until both Olivet's approval and the license question are settled.
Why Olivet students choose us to plan around license and location
We plan your placement around your license and Olivet's approved states from the first conversation. We search in your own area, inside the states Olivet approves for your track, and we check the preceptor's license and credentials against what Olivet's approval asks for before anything is submitted.
If you live near a state line or are about to move, we look at options on both sides and flag the license questions to settle with the SON Clinical Coordinator first. Every preceptor still needs Olivet's approval, and the details we prepare for that review are complete and accurate. If a preceptor leaves mid-course, the replacement we find meets the same license and location checks. Use the form below to start.
Questions Olivet students ask
Does my RN license need to be from Illinois to study at Olivet?
Olivet's graduate program pages ask for an unencumbered US RN license, and its online students live across the country. Whether you also need a license in the state where your clinical site sits is a question for your Canvas requirements course and the SON Clinical Coordinator, together with that state's board of nursing.
What happens if my license is disciplined during Olivet's FNP program?
You must tell the SON Clinical Coordinator, who informs your practicum site. From there, the site's decision and Olivet's own review shape what happens next, so work through it with the coordinator and your Program Director. Report it promptly rather than waiting until your next clinical course begins.
Can I do FNP clinicals in a state where I am licensed but Olivet has not approved?
No. Olivet's FNP disclosure bars practicum hours in its 13 not-approved states, whatever state the student calls home. Holding a license in one of those states does not change it. Choose a site in one of the 37 approved states or DC.
Can I start Olivet's RN-BSN before I pass the NCLEX?
The RN-BSN handbook allows students without a license to begin general education courses. You must pass the NCLEX and provide your RN license by the end of NRSG 302, the first core course. Both RN-BSN practicums, NRSG 364 and NRSG 471, come later in the core.
Does my preceptor need an unencumbered license too?
For the RN-BSN, the pre-August 2026 handbook says yes: a preceptor has to hold an unencumbered nursing license plus a BSN or a higher degree. Graduate preceptor criteria are set in the Canvas requirements course, and Olivet approves every preceptor, so check the course before you ask someone to precept you.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against Olivet's own handbooks, program pages, fee sheet and licensure disclosures. Your handbook version, your Canvas clinical requirements course, your faculty and the SON Clinical Coordinator have the final word.
Olivet asks you to start with your own network. We make the search the easy part of your program.
Tell us your Olivet track, where you live and when your next clinical course starts. We find preceptors whose patients fit the course, inside Olivet's approved states, and prepare everything Olivet's approval and the site's onboarding need.
- Preceptors matched to the course: adults and older adults for
NRSG 636C, women's health forNRSG 637C, children forNRSG 638C, education and leadership forNRSG 620 - Credentials, license and site details ready before your clinical course opens, with the drug screen timing on your calendar
- In your own community, in Illinois or any state Olivet approves for your clinicals
Start your placement plan
Track, city and start date is all we need to begin.