Affiliation agreements between Rivier and your practicum site
Before a single practicum hour counts, Rivier University and the organization where you will train need a contract, and the Clinical Practicum Coordinator has to confirm it. The current Handbook budgets 30 days for that contract; an older Rivier form warned of twelve weeks or more. Here is what opens an agreement, what slows one down and how to protect your semester while it runs.
Find a site ready to contract
We ask the contract question on the first call.
What the agreement is and why it gates your hours
An affiliation agreement is the contract between Rivier and the facility that hosts your practicum. It binds the school and the organization, not you and your preceptor, and it is a separate matter from your preceptor's approval: a willing, qualified clinician still cannot supervise your hours until the practice or hospital they work for is under contract with Rivier.
The 2026-2027 Handbook ties the contract straight to your hours. Nothing counts until the coordinator has confirmed that the contract, along with every required document, is on file, and hours cannot begin before the semester opens in any case. Rivier's older practicum form adds an order of operations: approval of the preceptor and a fully executed agreement should both be in hand before registration.
What opens an agreement
According to Rivier's older form, one document starts both processes: the Preceptor Request Form, which, once paired with the preceptor's paperwork, triggers the agreement and the preceptor review together. The Preceptor Request Form guide covers what to include and where it goes today.
Some sites may already be under contract. According to the Handbook, any options faculty suggest are drawn from Rivier's contract resources. Rivier publishes a list of clinical partners on its pre-licensure program pages, but no matching list for graduate practicums, so the practical step is to ask the Clinical Practicum Coordinator whether your proposed site already has an agreement before you assume either way. The answer changes your timeline: an existing contract removes a step, while a new one needs its full 30 days.
30 days or twelve weeks
Rivier's two documents disagree on timing. The current Handbook says contracts between Rivier and the site need 30 days. The older 2018 form said processing could run twelve weeks or more, and it paired that warning with earlier cutoffs (May 1 in place of August 1, September 1 in place of December 1). For 2026-27, the current Handbook and its August 1 and December 1 deadlines lead.
Read the 30 days as the time Rivier plans around, not a promise about any one organization. Each site's legal or education office works at its own pace, and a contract that needs extra signatures on the site's side takes as long as those signatures take. Sending your request about four months before the semester, as the Handbook recommends, leaves space for a slow signer. The placement deadlines guide maps each semester's dates.
Agency rules come first
A contract does not end the site's say. Rivier's older form puts it bluntly: where an agency's requirements differ from Rivier's, the agency's win. In practice that can mean an orientation run by the facility on top of Rivier's August CCP orientation, an agency-issued ID badge, or screening and onboarding steps the agency sets for every student it hosts.
The 2026-2027 Handbook adds a harder edge. An agency may decline a student because of what a background check turns up or because the student holds a vaccine exemption; when that happens Rivier is not obliged to find a replacement site. An agreement between Rivier and the organization leaves the agency's own screening fully in place, so ask early about any onboarding rule that could affect you. When an agency says no walks through what to do next.
Large health systems set their own terms
Some health systems publish their student placement rules, and those pages are worth reading before you approach a site. Dartmouth Health, for example, limits advanced practice student placements to schools it is already affiliated with and puts its own staff first, according to its page for those students. A separate Dartmouth Hitchcock page tells student-employees that their school must hold an agreement with the medical center before any clinical hours happen there or in its clinics.
Rivier's own pages do not say which health systems hold graduate practicum agreements with Rivier, so ask both the Clinical Practicum Coordinator and the site's education office directly. In a small independent practice, the clinician who precepts you may also be the person who signs the contract, which can make the conversation shorter. New Hampshire NP preceptors looks at what the state's health systems ask of schools.
Keeping a backup while the contract runs
A contract that stalls in its final week is the scenario that ends in deferral. A backup turns that moment into a switch rather than a lost semester.
- Name a second site earlyKeep one more qualified preceptor in conversation until your first site's contract is confirmed.
- Ask about parallel requestsCheck with the coordinator whether a second request can run alongside the first or should wait its turn.
- Hold off on registeringRivier's older form warns that students who register before approval and a signed agreement may have to drop the course.
- Watch the calendarIf the contract has not moved a month before your cutoff, raise it with the coordinator right away.
- Keep your own file completeAn unfinished CastleBranch record can hold up a finished contract, because both are checked before hours count.
How we clear the contract path before you commit
We ask the contract question on the first call, not the last. For every site we propose, we find out who signs student agreements, whether the organization already works with Rivier, and how long its review usually takes, and we hand you the site's contract contact for your request so the coordinator's office can start without chasing names.
We time your request to Rivier's four-month lead so a 30-day contract has room to breathe, and we keep a second qualified site in view until your placement is confirmed. Rivier and the site sign the agreement, and Rivier's faculty and coordinator approve the placement; we make sure everything that reaches them is complete and fits Rivier's rules the first time. When a contract review drags, we tell you early and bring the backup forward, so the cutoff never catches you with a single option.
Questions Rivier students ask
Who signs the affiliation agreement for a Rivier practicum?
The agreement is a contract between Rivier and the practicum site. You set it in motion by submitting the Preceptor Request Form with your preceptor's documents, and the Clinical Practicum Coordinator confirms the contract before hours count. Your own signature goes on the acknowledgement of Rivier's practicum processes, not on the site contract itself.
Does a signed agreement mean my preceptor is approved?
Not by itself. Rivier's older practicum form states that opening an affiliation agreement is not approval. Whether the site fits your course is graduate faculty's decision, and your preceptor must still satisfy the track's rules. The contract and the approval are two separate checks, and both must clear before your first hour.
Does my employer need an affiliation agreement with Rivier?
Ask the Clinical Practicum Coordinator whether your employer already has a contract with Rivier. If it does not, plan on the 30 days the Handbook allows for a new one. Rivier publishes no separate rule on employer sites, so the coordinator is the right person to confirm how your workplace would be handled.
How long does a Rivier affiliation agreement take?
The 2026-2027 Handbook says contracts between Rivier and the site need 30 days. Rivier's 2018 form put processing at twelve weeks or longer. Plan around the current 30 days as the working figure, submit about four months before the semester, and keep a backup site in case one review runs long.
Can I use a hospital from Rivier's clinical partner list?
The partner list on Rivier's pre-licensure pages covers clinical placements for BSN, ABSN and ASN students, whom Rivier assigns to agencies. It is not a list of graduate practicum sites. For an MSN practicum, ask the Clinical Practicum Coordinator whether the site you have in mind holds a contract with Rivier.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-26
We check these pages against Rivier's own Nursing Student Handbook, program sheets, catalog, academic calendar and State Guide. Your program of study, your course faculty, your Program Director and the Clinical Practicum Coordinator have the final word.
Rivier asks you to identify a qualified preceptor. We make that the easy part.
Tell us your Rivier track, where you live and which semester your next practicum starts. We find preceptors who meet your track's rules, check early whether the site can contract with Rivier, and prepare everything the Preceptor Request Form asks for, well ahead of August 1 and December 1.
- Preceptors matched to the track: an MD, DO or FNP in outpatient family practice for
NURS 511, a psychiatrist or PMH-certified NP forNURS 521, a hospitalist or intensivist forNURS 638P - Preceptor license, credentials and CV ready for the Preceptor Request Form, with the site's contact details for the contract
- In your own area, in New Hampshire or any state Rivier's State Guide accepts
Start your placement plan
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