FIU nursing from Illinois: the state's clinical filing and your two licenses
Illinois spells out the paperwork a nursing school from another state submits before placing students in Illinois clinics: five items, then an approval good for two years. Florida International University (FIU) calls its own programs undetermined for Illinois licensure, and its pages are silent on online-track clinicals outside Florida. Both points belong with FIU's Office of Clinical Education before you contact a preceptor.
Get your placement plan
Tell us your FIU program and where you live. A placement advisor replies with the preceptor and site options that fit your FIU course.
Where FIU stands for an Illinois address
FIU's licensure list covers three nursing programs (BSN, MSN, DNP Nurse Anesthesia) and finds them in line with Florida's requirements. For Illinois and every other state it has made no determination, and it advises checking with the state's licensing agency, here IDFPR, before you start. The licensure disclosure page walks through the wording.
At admission, FIU's MSN and DNP insist on a current Florida RN license. Because Illinois has no compact membership and, per NCSBN's map, no pending bill, a Chicago nurse at FIU carries an Illinois license for work and a Florida one for school. FIU's online primary care NP students may train outside the four counties around Miami, yet FIU says nothing about a site in another state.
What Illinois asks of an out-of-state program
68 Ill. Adm. Code 1300.340(n) lists what an out-of-state nursing program submits before placing students in Illinois clinicals. The filings are the school's, but knowing them shows you what FIU would weigh.
- Proof of standing at homeApproval or accreditation from the board in the program's own state.
- A letter of requestDates of the placement, plus which agencies and units will host students.
- The syllabusCovering the course tied to the placement.
- A signed facility contractAlready executed with the Illinois site.
- Faculty and preceptor formsShowing each person's qualifications.
Illinois grants the approval for a two-year term, renewable, with a report due each year, and program faculty need Illinois RN licenses. The provision sits among RN program-approval rules and is silent on graduate programs, while the Nurse Practice Act's exemption for graduate students licensed elsewhere, 225 ILCS 65/50-15(b)(10), speaks of programs located in this State.
Preceptors in a reduced practice state
AANP rates Illinois as reduced practice. Depending on the setting, an NP may need a physician collaborative agreement, and some Schedule II drugs and benzodiazepines can be prescribed only after meeting practice and continuing education requirements and forming a consultative relationship.
Rule 1300.340(j) asks that each preceptor be approved and oriented by program faculty, be present whenever the student gives care, and hold a current RN license in the state where the student practices. FIU's own bar, including national certification and a year in the field, is on preceptor requirements. Illinois gives something back to APRN preceptors: each APRN student precepted for a semester or quarter is worth 10 continuing education hours toward license renewal, to a maximum of 30 per renewal period, when the school documents it.
Chicago, Peoria, Rockford and the Metro East
The Census Bureau's 2025 estimates put about 8.7 million Illinoisans in the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metro area. Downstate, Illinois's share of the St. Louis metro area is near 672,000, Rockford near 337,000 and Peoria near 364,000. UChicago Medicine, Endeavor Health, OSF HealthCare, Advocate Health Care and Northwestern Medicine are examples of systems where Illinois NP preceptors practice; a contract with FIU would have to come first at any of them.
Near a state line? Missouri and Indiana are both compact states with rules of their own. FIU's approval question is the same for a site across the line, so ask about both in one message, and the Office of Clinical Education can tell you which option, if either, it would contract.
Why FIU students in Illinois choose us
An Illinois placement has several moving parts, and we keep every one of them in view. With FIU's go-ahead, we find preceptors near your home who fit the course and its patients: NGR 6201L calls for adult and older-adult primary care, NGR 6301L for pediatric primary care, and DNP work for an organizational mentor.
We complete each field of the Preceptor Request Form, confirm the preceptor's license in the state where you would train, and tell you up front if the clinic will need a new FIU contract. The approval itself comes from FIU's clinical faculty and its Office of Clinical Education; our part is sending them a request with nothing missing. If a preceptor withdraws, we move straight to a replacement. Contact us with your term.
Questions FIU students ask
Does Illinois require FIU to get approval before I train there?
Illinois asks out-of-state programs seeking clinical placements to submit five items and renew approval every two years, though graduate programs go unmentioned in the rule. Whether FIU has filed, or would, is for FIU to answer, so raise it with the Office of Clinical Education before lining up a site.
Will my Florida RN license let me work in Illinois?
No. Illinois stands outside the Nurse Licensure Compact, so neither a Florida license nor a multistate license from a compact state lets you practice there. Working in Illinois takes an Illinois license, and FIU's MSN and DNP separately require the Florida one.
Can FIU enroll me in an online program while I live in Illinois?
FIU belongs to NC-SARA via the SREB compact, and by FIU's count 49 of the 50 states are SARA members, with California the lone exception. Enrollment is a separate matter from licensure and clinicals, though: FIU's licensure page still lists Illinois as not determined.
I live in the Metro East. Could I train in Missouri instead?
Missouri, a compact state, sets its own rules, which our Missouri page covers. FIU's pages do not say whether online-track clinicals may happen in any state besides Florida, so the Office of Clinical Education has to approve the idea first, for Illinois and Missouri alike.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-26
We check these pages against FIU's own graduate handbook, preceptor manual, plans of study, catalog and licensure pages. Your plan of study, your course faculty, your clinical faculty and FIU's Office of Clinical Education have the final word.
FIU asks you to identify your clinical site. We make that the easy part.
Tell us your FIU track, where you live and which semester your next practicum starts. We find preceptors whose patients fit the course, check early whether the site already holds an FIU contract, and prepare everything the Preceptor Request Form asks for.
- Preceptors matched to the course: adult and older-adult primary care for
NGR 6201L, pediatric primary care forNGR 6301L, an organizational mentor forNGR 7940C - Preceptor, facility, license and schedule details ready for the Preceptor Request Form, weeks ahead of the contract clock
- Across Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe, or beyond them where FIU approves your site
Start your placement plan
Track, city and semester is all we need to begin.