The Graceland University clinical placement process, gate by gate
Graceland University approves every NP practicum through one chain: Castle Branch started, a preceptor found, Appendix A from you, a signed affiliation agreement, Appendix B from your preceptor, a coordinator's check of the whole file, one approval email per preceptor and site, and your names entered in Typhon. Your hours count only once the last link is in place, so plan backward from it.
Get your practicum through every gate
Tell us your Graceland track, next practicum course, term and city. Your placement advisor maps the search and the paperwork to your deadline.
Who does what, according to the handbook flowchart
The 2026 Graduate Student Handbook draws the process as a flowchart on page 68, and it splits the work three ways. You start your Castle Branch packages, track down a preceptor, with the Graduate Practicums Coordinator on hand to help, and then file Appendix A. Your preceptor completes Appendix B. A contract coordinator handles the site contract, checks your file and sends the approvals.
Sign-off on each preceptor and site belongs to the contract coordinators, the practicum course's lead faculty, or both. The handbook uses two titles for the people helping you, the Graduate Practicums Coordinator and the contract coordinators, without saying whether they are one role. Either way, practicum questions go to soncontracts@graceland.edu from your Sting email account.
One more rule shapes everything below. The flowchart ends by saying the process is repeated for each practicum term and class, so three practicums mean three full passes through this chain.
Gate one: Castle Branch and a preceptor who fits
The flowchart puts compliance first. Before any paperwork, you should have started or finished the Castle Branch packages for your track through Graceland's GD23 portal. Two items keep their own schedule: the background check must be complete before your first term ends, and the drug screen belongs in the 4-6 week window ahead of your first practicum. Castle Branch lists each item.
Then comes the preceptor. Graceland's review weighs credentials, experience, patient volume and whether the patient mix matches the course, so the search has to start from the course: NURS6740 and NURS6760 in primary care, AGACNP practicums in hospitals or specialists' offices, and psychiatric clinicians (psychiatrists or certified PMHNPs) throughout PMHNP. Physician assistants are never accepted. You may reuse a preceptor already approved in Graceland's database or put forward a new one, and finding your own preceptor covers the search itself.
Gate two: Appendix A, the site contract and Appendix B
Once a preceptor agrees, you submit Appendix A, the Request for Agency and Preceptor Approval, online through myGraceland. Each track has its own link, and you file one for every term, site and address you will work at. Every submission also includes an attestation box about new criminal charges, which you tick yourself.
The contract coordinator uses your Appendix A to see whether Graceland already holds an affiliation agreement with the site, or to send one. No clinical activity can happen until that agreement is signed and on file, and a contract covering one clinic in a health system does not automatically reach the system's other locations. Affiliation agreements explains why new contracts take the longest.
Your preceptor, meanwhile, completes Appendix B, the Preceptor Application & Agreement, on Graceland's online form. The form needs your identifying details (name, student ID number, Sting address) along with the course and term, and it collects a separate email address that Graceland turns into the preceptor's Typhon login. A fresh Appendix B is needed for every term that preceptor teaches you.
How the paperwork multiplies with sites and offices
Graceland counts forms by site and by preceptor, and page 69 of the handbook gives two worked examples. Check them against your own plan before you settle on a clinician who splits time across locations.
| Your setup | Appendix A | Appendix B | Site contracts | Approval emails |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One preceptor at one site | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Two preceptors at two different sites | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| One preceptor who works in three offices | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
The same page explains that each approved preceptor is cleared for the full hour total the practicum allows. What Graceland will not accept is an extra site or preceptor that skipped the paperwork: each one needs its own forms and approval before you see a patient there.
Gate three: review, the approval email and Typhon
With Appendix A, Appendix B and the contract in hand, the contract coordinator checks your Castle Branch record and every form, emails you about anything missing, and, before the trimester opens, lets the lead faculty or track coordinator know who is cleared to go.
Approvals arrive as separate emails, one per preceptor and site, and the coordinator enters you, your preceptors and your sites into Typhon no later than week one. Your instructor asks to see those emails when class opens; a site with no email behind it earns you no hours.
That email is one of seven conditions the handbook sets before any hour counts, alongside processed enrollment, clearance from Student Financial Services, a compliant Castle Branch record and the term's first day. The approval email page walks through all seven.
The calendar the chain runs on
Appendix A, Appendix B and your Castle Branch record share one due date per term: June 15 when the practicum falls in Fall, October 15 for Spring, February 15 for Summer. Anything sent before the term preceding your practicum simply waits in the queue. If you are still without a site two weeks out from the deadline, the coordinators want to hear from you then, and the handbook's broader advice is to begin as much as a full year ahead of a first practicum.
Two smaller rules catch people out. Graceland stops taking requests for an added second preceptor during the final fortnight before a term, and paperwork that misses the deadline can push the practicum, and with it your completion plan, back a term. The deadlines page has Graceland's full table, including a conflict over when Summer starts.
If you opted in to NPHub
The flowchart shades several steps with a note that NPHub, Graceland's optional paid placement partner, can do them. When you use NPHub for a practicum, it collects the site contract and both appendices directly from the clinic and the clinician, then hands the set to Graceland, so you do not file those forms yourself. Students who start in Spring 2027 move to a newer version of that process, in which Graceland's coordinators review each proposed match before it reaches the student.
Your compliance file remains your job, from each Castle Branch item to drug testing and the background check. Graceland still reviews the match, and its approval to NPHub covers the preceptor and site only; your clearance to start still depends on your own compliance items. The NPHub option page sets out the handbook's steps and dates.
How we move you through each gate
Gate one is where we do the heaviest lifting. Your placement advisor searches for preceptors who fit your exact course in your part of an approved state, and checks credentials and setting against Graceland's rules before anyone is asked. When a clinician agrees, you receive their details already sorted to match both appendices, the site's contract contact included, so the coordinator can start the agreement straight away.
From there we pace each step to whichever of Graceland's three deadlines governs your term, map your second preceptor across the three practicums and stay with you until the approval emails arrive. Graceland makes every decision; our job is to make sure what reaches it is complete and correct the first time. How it works shows our side of the sequence.
Questions Graceland students ask
How long does Graceland's placement process take from start to finish?
Longer than most students expect. The handbook cautions that contracts with preceptors and sites are slow to finalize and suggests beginning as much as a year ahead of a first practicum. The paperwork itself is due roughly ten to eleven weeks before Fall and Spring begin, and a site with no existing affiliation agreement is usually the slowest piece.
Do I repeat the whole process for each practicum?
Yes. The flowchart says the process is repeated for each practicum term and class. You file Appendix A per term, site and address, and your preceptor fills out Appendix B afresh every term, even when you stay with the same clinician. If Graceland already holds an agreement with the site, the coordinator can rely on it instead of starting a new one.
Can I count hours before my approval email arrives?
No. Hours count only after every condition on the handbook's list is met and only within the dates of the term. Instructors check approval emails as class opens, and time logged at a site that lacks one does not count toward your total, however much of it there is.
Where do I send questions about my practicum paperwork?
To soncontracts@graceland.edu, the contract coordinators' shared mailbox; the handbook asks that all practicum email go there. Send it from your @sting.graceland.edu address, the channel the School of Nursing counts as official, and include your track, course and term so the right coordinator can answer quickly.
What if my clinic makes students apply through its own system?
Let the contract coordinator know early. Graceland wants to hear about any clinic that expects the school to go through proprietary software, a web portal or a separate request procedure, since those add steps and weeks. Our guide to clinics with their own request systems covers the common cases.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against Graceland's own catalog, program pages and Graduate Student Handbook. Your handbook, your track coordinator and the contract coordinators have the final word.
Graceland's practicums are arranged by you, with Graceland's help. We do the searching.
Tell us your Graceland track, your city and your next practicum. We find preceptors who fit the course, line up what Appendix A and Appendix B ask for, and aim everything at Graceland's paperwork deadline for your term.
- Preceptors matched to the course: primary care for FNP, hospital and ICU clinicians for AGACNP, psychiatrists and PMHNPs for PMHNP
- Site address, contract contact and preceptor details ready before the June 15, October 15 or February 15 deadline
- Close to home in your approved state, with a second preceptor planned for Graceland's two-preceptor rule
Start your placement plan
Track, city and practicum start is all we need to begin.