Bradley's campus BSN and accelerated BSN clinicals
In Bradley University's campus BSN and 15-month accelerated BSN, Department of Nursing faculty plan and supervise every practicum at Peoria-area agencies, and you enroll in practicum sections instead of recruiting preceptors. The four-year program advertises 670+ clinical training hours. Your part is keeping the Viewpoint requirements current, getting yourself to the site and attending every scheduled day.
Get your placement plan
Tell us your Bradley program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your course.
Who arranges BSN clinicals
Faculty do. Bradley's 2026-27 undergraduate catalog says nursing instruction happens in campus classrooms and labs and in community health care agencies, with the practicum planned and supervised by Department of Nursing faculty. The Undergraduate Nursing Practicum Requirements Policy opens the same way: the department works with local agencies to provide practicum experiences.
Getting a seat is a registration task. The Undergraduate Student Handbook has students self-enroll in practicum course sections, except senior practicum courses, whose seats are held on reserve, and department staff confirm that each student meets the practicum requirements. Sections numbered 20 and above are reserved for accelerated BSN students.
Expect change from term to term. Bradley's placement-request policy notes that clinical days, times and sites shift each semester. That is the opposite of the graduate side, where online students choose their own preceptors and Bradley approves them.
Where Bradley BSN students train
Bradley's BSN page presents Peoria's health care community as the classroom: OSF HealthCare, including OSF Life Flight and its Level 1 Trauma Center, Carle Health System, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and the Jump Trading Simulation & Education Center. The department page describes a city with two major hospital systems, public health facilities and nursing homes.
The accelerated BSN page widens the list to nursing homes, social service agencies, county health organizations and rural health clinics, and says rotations begin right away across community health, ICU, mental health, skilled care, surgery and pediatrics.
Two practical details come from the handbook. In Appendix E, students consent to the department sharing identity details with OSF Medical Center and with Carle Health's Methodist, Proctor and Pekin hospitals so those sites can set up system access and clearances; Carle took those hospitals over from UnityPoint on April 1, 2023. And students get themselves to every site, so a car or reliable transit matters. The BSN page also notes that students train in Epic Lyceum before clinicals. For how those same systems handle NP students, see Peoria NP preceptors.
The practicum courses and hours
The catalog lists ten practicum courses in the four-year plan, placed by year and semester:
| Course | Title | Credits | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| NUR 203 | Fundamentals of Nursing - Practicum | 2.0 | Year 2, first semester |
| NUR 207 | Adult Health I: An Introduction to Medical-Surgical Nursing | 2.0 | Year 2, second semester |
| NUR 307 | Maternal-Newborn Nursing - Practicum | 2.0 | Year 3, first semester |
| NUR 309 | Nursing of Children (Practicum) | 2.0 | Year 3, first semester |
| NUR 315 | Psychiatric/Mental Health Nursing (Practicum) | 2.0 | Year 3, second semester |
| NUR 317 | Adult Health II: Medical-Surgical Nursing (Practicum) | 2.0 | Year 3, second semester |
| NUR 403 | Community Health Nursing - Practicum | 2.5 | Year 4, fall or spring, with NUR 404 |
| NUR 409 | Senior Practicum I | 2.5 | Year 4, first semester |
| NUR 413 | Leadership Practicum | 2.5 | Year 4, semester without NUR 403 |
| NUR 417 | Senior Practicum II | 2.5 | Year 4, semester without NUR 403 |
That adds to 22 practicum credits, graded Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory. NUR 411 Senior Practicum I Medical Surgical is an alternate taken with NUR 409 by students not in NUR 403 and NUR 404 that term. Two electives add clinical time: NUR 421 Professional Nursing Practice Immersion, which pairs you with a professional RN mentor and needs a 3.0 GPA, and NUR 425 Clinical Topics in Nursing.
The BSN page splits its 670+ hours into 560+ of direct patient care, 40+ in the simulation lab and 60+ in the skills lab. Those parts add to 660+, so read 670+ as a headline figure rather than a count you must log.
The accelerated BSN timeline
The accelerated BSN is for students who already hold a bachelor's in another field. Cohorts start in the May Interim and finish the following August, full time, across 59 credits. Admission asks for a 3.0 GPA over the last 60 hours and every prerequisite done before May. The BSN is awarded in August, and NCLEX-RN eligibility follows in September.
| Term | Courses |
|---|---|
| Year 1 May Interim | NUR 204 |
| Summer Session 1 | NUR 200, NUR 203 |
| Summer Session 2 | NUR 206, NUR 207 |
| Fall | NUR 303, 306, 307, 308, 309, 318 |
| Spring | NUR 314, 315, 316, 317, 404, 418 |
| Year 2 May Interim | NUR 403 |
| Summer Session 1 | NUR 408, 409, 414 |
| Summer Session 2 | NUR 410, 413, 417 |
The pace leaves little slack: term credit loads run 13, 15, 14 and 17. Every practicum from the four-year plan appears, compressed into five terms and two interims, which is why clearance items need to be finished before the first summer session rather than during it.
Requirements before your first practicum
The Undergraduate Nursing Practicum Requirements Policy, last approved by faculty on September 11, 2025, and the catalog list what must be in place before you set foot in an agency:
- A Viewpoint account, which holds your immunizations, CPR card, drug screen and a nationwide sex offender search
- Immunity or vaccination for measles, mumps and rubella; hepatitis B (three doses plus a positive titer); varicella (two doses); and Tdap within 10 years, with the adult-dose age given as 18 in the policy and 17 in the catalog
- A flu shot every year by October 31
- A negative two-step TB skin test given after April 1 of the semester before your first practicum, or a negative QuantiFERON
- CPR at the Healthcare Provider or Professional Rescuer level
- A negative drug screen through Viewpoint and an Illinois State Police background check showing no convictions (the catalog calls it a fingerprint background check)
- Coverage under the university's blanket student nurse liability policy, plus personal health insurance
- 100% on the medication calculation exam before junior and senior practicums
These items must stay current all year for the practicum courses. A student missing any of them cannot attend, and each missed day is graded zero.
Attendance, special requests and summer internships
Every scheduled practicum day counts. Under the Practicum Attendance Policy, an unexcused absence brings an Unsatisfactory grade, and vacations during the term are not allowed; the Undergraduate Practicum Remediation Process covers what follows. You also need a 2.50 cumulative GPA and a C or better in all major courses to stay in the program.
Special placement requests are narrow. The policy considers them only for university-sanctioned obligations such as athletics, ROTC, Honors, band or Global Scholars. Work schedules are not grounds for a request, and the Core and Clinical Course Coordinator makes the call.
Summer offers optional extra experience. A summer internship with an RN preceptor can be registered for credit as EHS 301 through the Smith Career Center after department screening, under a policy approved in January 2022; tech or CNA-level jobs do not qualify.
After the BSN: where we come in
Bradley's faculty handle BSN placements from start to finish. Our work begins when you move into a program where you choose your own preceptors, such as Bradley's online BSN-to-DNP or MSN nurse practitioner tracks. Those applications ask you to name potential preceptors, so we help you build that list early, with real clinicians who fit your track and are ready to precept, before you apply; the preceptors at application page explains what Bradley asks for.
Once you are admitted, your placement advisor finds and confirms each preceptor near home in your approved state, assembles every DocuSign packet ahead of the midterm deadline, and plans the next practicum while the current one runs. See the BSN-to-DNP FNP route or reach us on the contact page.
Questions Bradley students ask
Do Bradley BSN students have to find their own clinical placements?
They do not. In the campus BSN and accelerated BSN, Department of Nursing faculty plan and supervise the practicum at community health care agencies, and students enroll in practicum sections, with senior practicum seats held on reserve. Department staff check each student's requirements. Finding your own preceptor is a feature of Bradley's online graduate programs, not the undergraduate ones.
Can I ask for clinicals that fit my work schedule?
Bradley's Special Clinical Placement Requests policy considers requests only for university-sanctioned obligations such as athletics, ROTC, Honors, band or Global Scholars, and work obligations are not among them. The Core and Clinical Course Coordinator decides. Clinical days, times and sites change from term to term, so plan outside work around the practicum schedule each semester.
Which hospitals do Bradley nursing students train at?
Bradley's BSN page names OSF HealthCare, including OSF Life Flight and its Level 1 Trauma Center, Carle Health System, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the Jump Trading Simulation & Education Center. The accelerated BSN page adds nursing homes, social service agencies, county health organizations and rural health clinics. Carle now runs Peoria's Methodist, Proctor and Pekin hospitals.
What happens if one of my requirements lapses mid-year?
Under the Undergraduate Nursing Practicum Requirements Policy, a student missing a requirement cannot attend practicum, and each missed day is graded zero. The catalog says the requirements must stay current all year for the practicum courses, including the flu vaccine by October 31. Check your Viewpoint account before each term and again before flu season.
Does Bradley's accelerated BSN meet licensure requirements outside Illinois?
On education requirements, nearly everywhere. Bradley's campus disclosure table for Accelerated Nursing marks the program as meeting education requirements across the country, with a few Pacific territories left undetermined. One oddity: Wisconsin is absent from the list, apparently a clerical slip, so Wisconsin-bound graduates should confirm with the department. The state table page walks through it.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against Bradley's own catalog, online program pages and Graduate Student Handbook. Your clinical packet, course faculty and academic advisor have the final word.
Bradley lets you choose your preceptors. We find the ones worth choosing.
Tell us your Bradley track, your city and your next practicum course. We line up preceptors who fit the NUR course and gather the license, CV and malpractice details the DocuSign packet asks for, well before the midterm of the semester before you start.
- Preceptors matched to the course: primary care for FNP and AGPCNP, acute care teams for AGACNP, mental health settings for PMHNP
- Preceptor license, CV, malpractice coverage and the site address ready for the packet
- Every practicum in your sequence planned together, close to home in your approved state
Start your placement plan
Track, city and next practicum is all we need to begin.