UNCW's 8-week submission deadline, and the 90-day chart beside it

Two lead times, one handbook

The text of UNCW's DNP Immersion and Clinical Overview handbook (Fall 2025) says: "Submit information for clinical placements at least 8 weeks prior to the semester in which the placement will occur." The placement process chart printed in the same document says the Intent Form goes in "During application window (or at least 90 days prior to course start)."

Ninety days is close to 13 weeks. For a practicum that begins when the semester does, the chart's line falls about five weeks before the text's line, so a student planning to the 8-week rule may already be past the chart's. Treat 90 days as your deadline and 8 weeks as the last possible moment. The full placement process shows where this step sits in the sequence.

The Placement Packet Application Window named on the chart is published only in Canvas, and a site that charges an honorarium must be submitted inside that window because of processing and payment timelines. Check the window in your clinical overview course each term, and ask the Graduate Clinical Coordinator when the dates are unclear.

The search starts long before the deadline

The first box on UNCW's process chart puts the start of the preceptor search 6 to 12 months ahead of the deadline and the course. For most students that is the real deadline, because a packet cannot go in until a preceptor has agreed to a named course and semester and handed over a current CV.

The timing stacks up quickly in the full-time plans. The first practicum arrives in spring of the second year, which puts the search inside your first year of coursework (see your first clinical semester), and the practica then run one per semester, summer included. Each term brings another packet, and a course split across sites needs one for each preceptor, up to 4 in a course.

Starting early also buys choice. UNCW works through requests first come, first served, with the soonest semester given priority, and the handbook warns that a delay "may prevent obtaining the best possible or preferred placement site."

What a late submission costs

UNCW publishes no penalty table, but its handbook rules add up to real costs when a packet runs late:

• A lower place in the review queue, and a real chance of losing your preferred site.
• More reliance on the Clinical Placement Team, whose offered site you are expected to accept; see team-offered sites.
• A later start, because no hours count before course orientation and GCC approval, and hours logged early can be disqualified.
• A heavier weekly load. All hours finish before the last day of classes: 180 hours across the spring 2026 clinical dates is about 12 a week, and losing four weeks pushes that close to 16.
• An incomplete, if hours or encounter minimums fall short, with program progression halted until the grade clears.

If your term is already close, need a preceptor fast lays out the quickest workable route, and delayed graduation covers what happens if the calendar slips further.