ASU's clinical placement policy, in plain terms

In ASU's words, "students residing outside of Maricopa County, Arizona, are responsible for identifying the required number of clinical sites in their area of residence and for identifying preceptors and sites willing to accommodate clinical rotations." The Doctor of Nursing Practice program office does not guarantee a clinical placement site for any student outside Maricopa County, and Edson College must approve these sites before starting any clinical experience. Put simply: in-county, ASU helps arrange it; out-of-county, you build it and ASU approves it, with no guarantee.

Read closely, the policy does two things at once: it assigns the search to you and it reserves the final say to Edson. Those are separate obligations, and clearing one does not clear the other, so a preceptor who agrees to take you still leaves you with an approval to win. Understanding the policy as two gates rather than one is the difference between a plan that works and a surprise in your practicum term.

Your county of residence decides, not where the campus is. The Downtown Phoenix campus sits in Maricopa County, but that only matters for the in-person intensives; the placement policy keys off where you live, so a student anywhere outside the county, including most online and out-of-state students, falls into the self-source group. If you are unsure which group you are in, that is worth confirming with Edson before you plan your clinical timeline.

This catches students off guard because the campus is in Maricopa County, so it feels like proximity should help. It does not: attending an intensive in Phoenix does not make you a county resident for placement purposes. If your permanent address is elsewhere, you are in the self-source group regardless of how often you travel to campus, which is worth settling with Edson before you build your timeline.

The two groups carry very different burdens. A Maricopa County resident has focused clinical experiences arranged with ASU's help; a student outside the county identifies the required number of sites and preceptors, receives no placement guarantee, and still has to clear Edson approval. The table lays the responsibilities side by side.

Not for students outside Maricopa County. ASU is explicit that the DNP program office does not guarantee a clinical placement site for those students. That single sentence is the reason self-sourcing is not a formality: if your search stalls or a site fails approval, there is no fallback placement waiting, so the risk sits with your calendar unless you move it off, which is what our service does.

The absence of a guarantee is not a formality to wave past. It means there is no institutional safety net if your search stalls, no default site ASU will assign you, and no cushion if a placement falls through late. Every bit of that risk sits on your calendar by default, which is exactly the risk a placement service exists to absorb on your behalf.

Your clinicals can be moved to Phoenix. ASU's policy states that if, during the program, faculty determine a student needs additional supervision for clinical progress, the student must complete clinical experiences in the Phoenix area. It is the honest downside of an out-of-county placement, and planning for a strong, clearly approvable local site from the start is the best way to keep that possibility remote.

It is also the one part of the policy you cannot fully control, since it turns on a faculty judgment made after you are enrolled. What you can control is how strong your starting placement is: a clearly matched site and a preceptor whose scope is unambiguous give faculty little reason to question your clinical progress, which is the best way to keep the Phoenix-area requirement a clause you never trigger.

If you are outside Maricopa County, plan to secure your own preceptor and sites and to leave real time for Edson's approval, because a program with up to 1,125 practicum hours has no slack for a term lost to a late or rejected site. We run the search and shepherd the approval so that risk sits with us, not your calendar. Confirm the current policy for your own program against your ASU materials, since school policies can change.

Concretely, that means budgeting for a search that can take months and an approval that runs on the site's and the university's schedule, not yours. If you back-plan from your intended start term, the sourcing has to begin a term or more ahead, which for most students is earlier than instinct suggests. Moving that whole burden onto us is how the policy stops governing your timeline.

Sources: ASU Edson College clinical placements, ASU Edson College accreditation, and Arizona State Board of Nursing.