Who can precept a Maryville NP student

The standard rule for every NP track

The baseline for all five NP concentrations comes from Maryville's February 2026 preceptor blog. Your preceptor must be:

• an APRN, an MD or a DO;
• board certified;
• holding an unencumbered license for their own practice state;
• at least one year into practice.

The 2023 "Why Maryville Nursing" webinar said the same in different words: board-certified nurse practitioners, doctors or DOs "with a minimum of one year working experience." The NP practicums are the same courses whether you're in the MSN, the BSN-to-DNP, the DNP-NP or a post-master's certificate, so the rule follows you on any of those paths.

Maryville resends its preceptor qualifications one semester ahead of your first clinical course, and the current version is posted in the Graduate Nursing Clinical Resource Center, behind your login. Read that copy for your own track before you approach anyone, because it is the version your request will be judged against.

Who qualifies, credential by credential

Here is how each type of clinician lines up against Maryville's published sources.

The PA line is where sources drift. In the 2023 MSN webinar a Maryville speaker said "none of the specialties allow PAs at this point." The 2026 blog softens that to "typically." Neither says what an exception for a PA would look like, so treat a PA preceptor as a no unless Maryville tells you otherwise in writing.

PMHNP: prescribers, therapists and psychotherapy hours

PMHNP preceptors follow the same base rule with additions. The 2026 blog lists PMHNPs, LCSWs and clinicians with a PsychD or PhD in Psychology as qualifying for PMHNP students. The 2023 MSN webinar explains the split: prescribing preceptors are physicians or PMHNPs, while counselor-type professionals, reviewed by the PMHNP coordinator, can cover some of the required psychotherapy hours.

For the prescribing side, the 2023 "Why Maryville Nursing" webinar said Maryville needs preceptors with "psychiatric prescribing authority," and excluded retail settings, as well as primary care practices that have no psychiatric provider. Maryville's clinical packet spells out the psychotherapy-hour rules, but no public page gives the number of those hours or how they fall across NURS 662, NURS 664 and NURS 667.

A PMHNP plan built around a psychiatric prescriber, with any LCSW or psychologist hours confirmed in advance, fits both sources. Ask the PMHNP coordinator or check the Resource Center for the number of hours a non-prescriber may sign. The courses are laid out on PMHNP practicums.

Who can't precept you, however qualified

The 2026 blog rules out people whose relationship to you would compromise an honest evaluation. Your preceptor cannot be:

• a relative;
• your direct supervisor;
• someone who reports to you;
• your current healthcare provider;
• "a direct work colleague or someone who evaluates your performance."

The last line catches students planning to train at their own workplace. The NP you share a unit with, or the manager who writes your review, is out even if the practice is an ideal site. A 2023 webinar accepted an employer as a site only where there was no conflict of interest, and not while you are on the clock; the full rules are on clinicals at your employer.

How Maryville checks a preceptor

Checking starts with you. A 2021 Ask Maryville article tells students to find the preceptor's state license and board certification online and upload both. For nurse practitioners it points to Nursys, noting that "a CNP license" can satisfy both the license and board-certification requirement. For physicians it points to separate lookups for the license and for board certification.

Those documents then travel with your Exxat site and preceptor request. If board certification is missing, an approved Preceptor Exception Form has to be attached in My Request as well. Maryville does help at this stage: one 2025 PMHNP graduate, quoted in the 2026 blog, credits Maryville with helping confirm the preceptor's credentials.

The 2021 article predates Exxat, so the lookups it names may have changed. What hasn't changed in any source is the split of work: you gather the proof, and Maryville decides.

Details the sources don't settle

A few preceptor questions have only dated or partial answers:

• Same preceptor across terms. In the 2023 MSN webinar, faculty told FNP and AGPCNP students they could stay with one preceptor for the whole program. For AGACNP, a speaker's answer, hedged with "I think," was a 250-hour cap per preceptor. No current source confirms either.
• Setting by track. In the 2023 "Why Maryville Nursing" webinar, primary and preventive care was the rule for FNP, AGPCNP and PNP ("nothing hospitalist"); AGACNP, by contrast, needs a hospitalist-type setting. The setting is judged with the site; see site approval.
• CV or preceptor agreement. No public Maryville source names a preceptor CV requirement or a preceptor agreement form.
• Incentives. Maryville said in 2023 that it does not pay preceptors, and names no other incentive.

Before you build a plan on any of these, check it in the Resource Center, which the 2026 blog describes as refreshed every semester.

Why students choose us to find a qualifying preceptor

Every rule on this page can be checked before a request reaches Maryville: certification status, license state, years in practice, and any working relationship with you. Our placement advisors run those checks first, alongside the setting your track needs, so the preceptors we bring you already clear Maryville's bar. We search near you in the right kind of practice, confirm license and certification from public records, and flag anything that would need an exception form before you spend a request on it.

You submit the request and upload the documents with everything already verified and in order. Maryville makes the final decision, and it sees a preceptor who fits its rules on paper from the first look. If a preceptor leaves partway through, we are on call to find a qualified replacement. Already have a candidate and unsure they qualify? Send us your track and their credential.