From your first message to Placement Approved
You tell us your Loyola University New Orleans program, the practicum course coming up, where you live and when the term starts. We find preceptors near you whose patients fit that course, test each against Loyola's rules, find out whether Loyola already has a contract with the site, and hand you a finished Exxat Wishlist packet. Then we stay on call until your hours are logged.
Get your placement plan
Tell us your Loyola program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your Loyola course.
What you send us, and what comes back
Four details open the search: your Loyola program, the practicum course you need covered (for example NURS G827 or NURS G902), the city or parish you live in, and the term the course runs. Anything you already tried helps too, such as practices that said no.
What returns to you is a preceptor who suits that course, at a site you can reach, with the material the Exxat Wishlist asks for already collected: the agency name and street address, the person to contact, the authorized legal signer, the preceptor's CV and license, and a signed Preceptor Agreement. You also learn early on whether Loyola and the site already share a signed contract or whether one still has to be put in place.
The search, step by step
Every placement we take on follows the same seven steps.
- Read the course against your plan of studyThe course sets the target: its setting, its patient population and the clinicians Loyola accepts for it, set out by program below.
- Confirm your practicum stateWe check that the state sits inside Loyola's approvals for your program and that you hold an active RN license there, which Loyola requires in every practicum state. Loyola's sources differ for a handful of states, covered on the State Approvals Map page.
- Reach practices in your areaYour placement advisor contacts clinics near you, explains the Loyola course and its hours, and covers what a preceptor weighs before agreeing: schedule, patient mix and Loyola's paperwork.
- Test the preceptor against Loyola's rulesWe confirm the license is current, unencumbered and valid where the site sits, that the clinician is board certified with over one year (2,080 hours) in practice, that no family tie links you, and that they will be on site for every hour. Course-by-course details sit on the preceptor requirements page.
- Settle the affiliation agreement questionWe look the site up on Loyola's Explore Clinical Locations map. When no active agreement exists, we find the authorized signer, share the Standard Loyola Affiliation Agreement and raise the timeline at once, with a backup site ready.
- Assemble your Wishlist packetYou get every field and upload in one set, including the Nursys PDF Loyola asks for when the preceptor is an NP. You then submit from your Exxat Dashboard under Submit Preferences.
- Stay on call through the termAfter Placement Approved, we remain available; if a preceptor leaves partway, the replacement search starts as soon as you tell us.
What stays with you and with Loyola
You buy the two Exxat subscriptions, upload compliance items to Required Documents for review by the Exxat APPROVE team, sign the FERPA consent that lets Loyola share your records with a site, and submit the Wishlist from your own account.
Loyola's Clinical Practicum Coordinator obtains and tracks affiliation agreements and your compliance with site requirements, and your faculty approve the placement. Our job is to see that everything arriving on their desks is complete and follows Loyola's rules, so the request moves forward instead of coming back for fixes. Each Loyola role is described on the who does what page.
Your hours start counting only after two things happen: Exxat shows the full request as Placement Approved, and the affiliation agreement carries all its signatures. Loyola's bulletin voids hours logged sooner, and the course may need repeating.
Timing: counting back from your term
Loyola's FNP guide wants students moving a minimum of three months ahead of a practicum, since the process can run that long. For a Spring 2027 course, with classes opening January 19, three months back lands in mid-October 2026; for a Summer 2027 course in the 14-week session starting May 17, it lands in mid-February.
Compliance keeps its own calendar. Loyola's bulletin and its graduate program pages give different windows after enrollment for the background check and drug screen, 60 days in one and thirty in the other, so plan for the earlier date. Keeping both clocks in view means an expired BLS card or a missing TB form surfaces before it stalls your request. For a calendar you can follow, see the three-month lead time page.
How the search changes by program
FNP students need four outpatient primary care placements. NURS G823 and NURS G827 can be precepted by an NP, MD, DO or PA; NURS G829 needs a practice seeing children and pregnant patients; and a specialty site for NURS G833 needs the FNP Director's approval.
In the AGACNP track, you and your preceptor build the shift schedule together, anywhere from 4 to 12 hours a shift, weekends and holidays included, so we look for acute care clinicians whose schedules can carry each course's hours. PMHNP students need psychiatric preceptors for the management practicums that follow NURS G866. DNP students need a project site and a preceptor who is not a relative, employer or direct supervisor.
Nurse-Midwifery, Nurse Anesthesia and the BSN programs assign sites themselves. For a Nurse-Midwifery rotation outside Louisiana, which needs a willing CNM's signed letter at least six months ahead, we help find that CNM.
When a preceptor leaves mid-term
When a preceptor changes jobs, takes leave or cuts clinic days, tell us that day. We restart the search around the hours you still owe, check whether the new site already has a Loyola agreement, and build a fresh packet, since the new preceptor's CV, license and Preceptor Agreement go through Exxat just as the first ones did. Let your faculty of record and the Clinical Practicum Coordinator hear about the change as well, because both follow your placement and will see the new request.
If the remaining hours cannot fit before the term closes, your faculty of record decides the next step, which may be the EARLY START/EXTENSION PRACTICUM approval form or an Incomplete. The preceptor dropped out page explains both.
Why Loyola students choose us
Everything we do is shaped around Loyola's own process. Each placement begins with your course number and ends with a Wishlist packet that answers every question Loyola asks, put together by people who know how FPCM III differs from FPCM IV and why an unsigned agreement costs hours.
The outreach happens in your community, in person, with preceptors who understand what a Loyola practicum involves before they agree. That thoroughness is what a clean path to Placement Approved depends on, and we keep your next practicum in view as well, so the following term's preceptor is lined up before the three-month mark. Send the form below with your program, your city and your term, or read what shapes a quote.
Questions Loyola students ask
How far ahead of my Loyola practicum should I reach out?
As soon as you know the term. Loyola's FNP guide asks students to begin at least three months ahead, and a site with no Loyola affiliation agreement can take longer, especially if it sends its own contract. Two or more terms out gives you the widest choice of preceptors.
Do I still submit the Exxat Wishlist myself?
Yes. The Wishlist sits in your own Exxat account, under Submit Preferences on the Dashboard. Before you open it, we prepare every field and file, from agency and signer details to the preceptor's CV, a license copy (a Nursys PDF for NP preceptors) and the signed Preceptor Agreement.
Can you find a preceptor if I live outside Louisiana?
Yes, anywhere Loyola has approved practicums for your program. Your RN license has to be active where the hours happen, and Loyola wants a Louisiana or multistate RN license held throughout enrollment. Loyola's two state sources do not match for several states, so we confirm yours before any outreach starts.
Can I bring a preceptor I already found?
Yes. We test that clinician against Loyola's rules for your course, look up the site's agreement status, and collect the Wishlist items. If the lead falls through, the search carries on from what you already learned, so the work you put in still counts toward finding the right site.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against Loyola's own bulletin, program pages, practicum guides, forms and licensure disclosures. Your plan of study, your practicum guide, your program director and the Clinical Practicum Coordinator have the final word.
Loyola asks you to select your own preceptor and site. We make that the easy part.
Tell us your Loyola program, where you live and which term your next practicum starts. We find preceptors whose patients fit the course, check whether the site already has a Loyola affiliation agreement, and prepare everything your Exxat Wishlist needs.
- Preceptors matched to the course: outpatient primary care for
NURS G823, pediatrics and obstetrics forNURS G829, acute care forNURS G902, psychiatric care forNURS G856 - Preceptor CV, license and Nursys PDF, the Preceptor Agreement and the site's signer details ready for the Wishlist
- In your own community, in Louisiana or any state where Loyola approves your practicum
Start your placement plan
Program, city and term is all we need to begin.