Virginia clinicals for UC nursing students

What UC allows in Virginia

Virginia sits outside the seven states where UC runs no graduate clinicals. Whether you can train here depends only on your program, since three UC options enroll Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana residents and nobody else.

A Board that stays out of UC's way

By its own account, Virginia's nursing board has no regulatory role over schools based in other states or over education for nurses who already hold a license, and both descriptions fit UC's graduate programs. The rule that 80% of clinical time happen in Virginia, and the site approvals under 18VAC90-27, are for Virginia's own prelicensure schools. What stands between you and a Virginia clinical is UC: your Clinical Site Coordinator's vetting and a signed Educational Affiliation Agreement.

There's also a statutory exemption in Va. Code § 54.1-3001. A nurse enrolled in an advanced professional nursing program, holding an unrestricted license from another state, DC or a territory, doesn't need a Virginia license for the clinical practice that curriculum demands, and for nothing beyond it. UC's rule is simpler: your RN license must be valid in the clinical state. Ask your CSC whether the exemption satisfies UC before relying on it in place of a Virginia or multistate license.

Patient care teams and who can precept you

In AANP's classification Virginia is restricted. The default for an NP is a practice agreement with a patient care team physician; attesting to three years' full-time clinical experience, or its equivalent, lifts that requirement. So among the NPs you approach, some will have such an agreement and some won't. UC doesn't mind which, provided the preceptor meets its criteria and holds an unencumbered Virginia license.

PAs can't precept you in Virginia, because it isn't one of UC's 14 PA states. On NP tracks, at least a fifth of your hours belong with an NP who shares your population focus. UC preceptor requirements lists the rules by track.

NPIP, and why it skips UC students

NPIP, Virginia's Nurse Preceptor Incentive Program, pays preceptors on a sliding scale tied to hours, first come, first served, and it's open to Virginia-licensed RNs, LPNs, APRNs, PAs and physicians. The eligibility test that matters is about the student: only those at a Virginia public or private nonprofit nursing school count. UC is in Ohio, so your hours don't qualify.

The program also moved in 2026. SB 405, signed March 31, handed it from VDH to the Virginia Nursing Workforce Center, which takes applications for hours worked from July 1, 2026; VDH stopped taking them after April 30.

From Northern Virginia to Roanoke

More than three million Virginians live in the Virginia portion of the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metro. Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, Richmond and Roanoke follow. Inova, Sentara Health, VCU Health, UVA Health and Carilion Clinic are big names in those markets, listed here as examples rather than as sites known to take UC students.

State lines matter here. A site in Maryland brings Maryland's rules and UC's supplemental Maryland background check, which Virginia doesn't have; see Maryland. Tennessee, at Virginia's southwestern tip, is closed to UC graduate clinicals.

Licensing, and how we help

Virginia has belonged to the RN compact since January 19, 2018, but not to the APRN Compact, so a multistate RN license covers you. RN license for clinicals goes into compact licenses in detail.

We search Virginia for preceptors matched to your UC track, from Northern Virginia to Roanoke, and help you prepare what your CSC reviews. Since NPIP doesn't reach UC students, our outreach leads with what UC does offer preceptors, such as CE webinars, which gives a busy Virginia clinician a concrete reason to say yes. Contact us with your track and term.