What shapes the cost of your Augusta University placement
A placement quote for an Augusta University student follows the work the search takes. Five things drive it: the track and the patients your course names, where in Georgia or South Carolina you live, how soon the course begins, how many hours the preceptor must carry, and how much onboarding the site asks for. Your placement advisor walks through each one before you decide.
Get your placement plan
Tell us your Augusta University program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with preceptor and site options in your community that fit your Augusta University course.
Your track and the patients in the course
The narrower the population, the smaller the pool of fitting preceptors. An FNP search shifts three times, from adults in NURS 8312 to children and adolescents in NURS 8315 to older adults and families in NURS 8318. PNP students need pediatric primary care in every course, which limits the search to practices that see children all day.
PMHNP courses add structure: NURS 8345 and NURS 8348 call for at least one child or adolescent group and one adult psychotherapy group, so a placement may need a practice with group programs or a second site. AGACNP courses sit in acute care, where hospital credentialing and school agreements add steps. Your quote reflects how many practices fit the course and how much of that extra structure it needs. The PMHNP course guide explains the group hours.
Where you live in Georgia or South Carolina
Augusta University's NP students live in one of two states so faculty can visit, which keeps every search inside Georgia or South Carolina but spreads it across very different markets. Metro Atlanta has the most practices, yet its large systems run their own routes: Emory takes requests only through a central process, while Northside and Grady expect the student or school to bring the preceptor.
Rural regions have fewer practices and longer drives. HRSA lists every Upstate South Carolina county, and every county in Georgia's Heart of Georgia Altamaha and Southern Georgia regions, as a whole-county mental health shortage area, which narrows psychiatric searches there. Archived copies of Prisma Health's and AnMed's student pages limit NP placements mostly to their own staff and local partner schools. Clinical travel and lodging are the student's cost under College of Nursing policy, so we weigh drive time as closely as fit. The Georgia regions and South Carolina regions guides go area by area.
How soon your clinical course starts
Lead time is the factor you control. Health systems keep their own calendars: Wellstar's advanced practice student applications close March 30 for summer, June 30 for fall and November 15 for spring, and Northside wants students compliant 30 days before a rotation, with 60 suggested for January starts, according to their student pages.
A request made three to six months before the term lets us compare several preceptors and meet those windows. A request for a course that starts within weeks, or has already begun, calls for a compressed search across many practices at once, and the quote reflects that urgency. If that is you, read what to do this week.
Hours in the course and the length of the term
Every DNP NP track has two 180-hour courses and two 240-hour courses, the last being NURS 9192. A preceptor who takes on 240 hours gives about 16 hours a week across a 15-week semester, and a summer course fits 180 hours into 10 or 11 weeks (both figures our arithmetic). Longer, denser commitments narrow the pool, and sometimes two preceptors share one course, which doubles the coordination.
Certificate students need at least 540 clinical hours over three courses, and a gap analysis can raise that to as many as 750. A quote can cover one course or plan across several; planning ahead can keep one preceptor with you for more than one term when the populations match. Clinical hours has the totals by program.
Site onboarding and agreements
Some sites take a student in a few steps; others need a school-level affiliation agreement, portal credentialing and signed forms first. Many Georgia systems credential students through ACEMAPP, Northside asks for an Exhibit A signed by a physician, and Piedmont requires its own background check vendor and a new participation agreement for each rotation, according to their student pages. Emory notes that a new affiliation can take several months.
Whatever the site, College of Nursing policy has students sign Augusta University and affiliate documents before the first clinical day. The more a site asks for, the more coordination the placement takes, and that is part of the quote. Clinical agreements explains why lead time matters here.
Program costs that sit outside a placement quote
Augusta University's own clinical costs are separate from any placement quote and are paid the way the College of Nursing directs. Its policies and DNP fee page list them in words:
- Background checks and drug screens, repeated during the DNP, plus fingerprinting where a site asks
- A subscription to the approved clinical tracking system for logging hours
- A credentialing fee with the clinical agency
- Per-semester immunization tracking and liability insurance fees, and a skills lab fee on NP practice courses
- Personal health insurance, TB tests, titers and in-person BLS
- Travel to the site and any overnight lodging
Knowing these early lets you budget the whole term. The compliance guide explains each item and its deadline.
How to get your quote
- Send the basicsYour Augusta University track, the next clinical course and term, and your city or county.
- Hear the planA placement advisor explains which of the five factors weigh on your search and what it involves.
- Read a written quoteIt names the course, the work included and the terms.
- DecideYou choose whether to go ahead, and the search begins when you do.
Every quote is built for one Augusta University student and one course plan, which is why this page lists factors rather than figures. Request yours.
Questions Augusta University students ask
Why are there no prices on this site?
Two Augusta University students rarely need the same search. A PMHNP student in a rural county with a summer course and an FNP student near Evans with a fall course six months off ask for very different work. Your placement advisor quotes your course after hearing the details, so the quote matches the search you actually need.
Is a PNP or PMHNP placement priced differently from an FNP one?
It can be. Pediatric primary care and psychiatric courses draw on smaller groups of preceptors, and the group work in NURS 8345 and NURS 8348 may call for a second site. When a search needs more outreach or coordination, your quote says so and explains why, so you can compare it with your own options.
Does a placement quote include the tracking system or background checks?
Those are Augusta University program costs. Students pay for the clinical tracking system subscription, background checks, drug screens and agency credentialing as the College of Nursing directs, apart from any placement quote. We help you plan for them and keep the records current. The tracking system guide covers the log.
Does asking earlier change my quote?
Timing is one of the five factors. An early request gives us room to compare preceptors and meet health system deadlines; a request for a course already under way needs a faster, wider search. Your placement advisor tells you how your start date shapes your quote, and how it works shows the steps.
Can one quote cover more than one clinical course?
Yes. You can ask for a single course or a plan across several, such as Practice III and NURS 9192. Planning across terms can keep one preceptor with you where the populations match, which keeps the onboarding and paperwork in one place. Compare approaches in your own search or ours.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-27
We check these pages against Augusta University's own catalog, program plans, DNP handbook and program pages, and Georgia and South Carolina rules. Your course faculty and the College of Nursing have the final word.
Whatever your program arranges, we find the preceptor who fits.
Tell us your Augusta University track, where in Georgia or South Carolina you live and when your next clinical course starts. We find preceptors near you who fit the course and Augusta University's rules, and hand you everything your faculty and the site need, well before the semester.
- Adult, pediatric and older-adult preceptors for
NURS 8312toNURS 8318, acute care forNURS 8332toNURS 8338 - Pediatric primary care for the PNP courses and psychiatric preceptors for
NURS 8342toNURS 8348 - Across Georgia and South Carolina, from the CSRA to Savannah, Atlanta and Columbia
Start your placement plan
Program, city and start date is all we need to begin.