Clarkson College clinicals in Mississippi, kept inside the state line
Clarkson College's workbook for 2026-27 gives Mississippi a Meets Requirements answer on the Graduate Nursing tab, so you can live there, study in an online NP track and log your clinical hours at home. What makes Mississippi unusual is the map around it: Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee and Alabama all read Does Not Meet, so a sound preceptor search starts and ends on the Mississippi side.
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What Clarkson's workbook says for Mississippi
| Workbook tab | Mississippi answer |
|---|---|
| Graduate Nursing (MSN, post-graduate certificate, DNP) | Meets Requirements |
| CRNA | Meets Requirements |
| RN-BSN | Does Not Meet Requirements |
There is no footnote on Mississippi, and the licensing contact Clarkson names is the Mississippi Board of Nursing. For what the RN-BSN column means and how Clarkson builds the file, see the workbook explainer.
Every border is a Does Not Meet border
All four states that touch Mississippi sit on Clarkson's list of twelve Does Not Meet states for Graduate Nursing, and Clarkson's catalog cautions that board rules in some states stand in the way of its graduate clinical placements. That bites hardest at the edges. The Memphis metro takes in some 278,000 Mississippi residents, yet many of its best-known clinics and hospitals stand in Tennessee; the western and southern edges face Arkansas and Louisiana.
So plan on a Mississippi preceptor at a Mississippi site, and ask your program director before you count on anything over a border. Moving calls for the same care. Your MyCC home address is what fixes your state in Clarkson's eyes, so a move to Memphis or New Orleans puts financial aid, and even finishing the degree, at risk. The Tennessee guide and Louisiana guide cover the other side.
IHL's review of programs from outside Mississippi
In Mississippi, nursing degree programs answer to IHL, the state's higher-education trustees; program approval by the Board of Nursing is limited to practical nursing schools. IHL's position is that a school from another state whose nursing students, graduate or undergraduate, train here must hold them to Mississippi's standards. A practicum on Mississippi soil counts, in IHL's reading, as the school being physically present, which sends the program to IHL Nursing Education for review.
Budget time for that. IHL's review can take three months, and Appendix S of its August 2024 procedures manual asks out-of-state schools to file at least four months before their first student arrives. Separately, the school must either belong to SARA or obtain distance-education authorization outside SARA from MCCA; Clarkson is a SARA participant. The review sits between IHL and Clarkson, not with you, and our research could not confirm where Clarkson stands, so ask your Graduate Nursing advisor about it ahead of picking a start term.
Licenses, collaboration and who precepts
On licensing, IHL and Clarkson ask the same thing: an APRN student's RN license, unencumbered, must be valid in whatever state the clinical is in. Mississippi's place in the Nurse Licensure Compact dates to Jan. 19, 2018. Its Board spells out the upshot: declare a compact state as home, stay in good standing, and your license works across other member states. Mississippi sits outside the APRN Compact. The broader license picture is on the license page.
Practice is reduced in Mississippi by the AANP's measure: an NP's collaborator must be a Mississippi-licensed physician or dentist, and the board signs off on the arrangement. A physician is part of every NP's practice arrangement there, and under Clarkson's track rules a physician can precept FNP and AGACNP courses directly, while PMHNP courses call for a psychiatrist. The two-year and same-state license rules are listed on the preceptor requirements page.
Where Mississippi NP students look, and where we come in
People cluster around Jackson, roughly 610,000 in its metro, along the coast in Gulfport-Biloxi, about 431,000, and in Hattiesburg, about 158,000. The academic flagship is UMMC (University of Mississippi Medical Center). Students also weigh Baptist Memorial Health Care, headquartered in Memphis, whose Mississippi hospitals include Mississippi Baptist in Jackson; North Mississippi Health Services; Singing River Health System; and Forrest Health. You approach each on its own published terms; none is a Clarkson pipeline.
We keep your search inside Mississippi from day one, working the Mississippi counties of the Memphis area rather than Tennessee, confirm each preceptor's Mississippi license, and bring the IHL question to you early so Clarkson can answer it in time. You get vetted names and every detail the site and preceptor agreement asks for. Tell us your county and track.
Questions Clarkson students ask
I live in north Mississippi. Can my clinicals be in Memphis?
Plan on the Mississippi side. Tennessee carries a Does Not Meet on Clarkson's Graduate Nursing tab this year. A Memphis site would need a direct answer from your program director first; practices in the Mississippi part of the metro avoid that question entirely.
Does the Mississippi Board of Nursing approve Clarkson's program?
Not in the way you might expect. Its program approvals are for practical nursing schools; RN degree programs, and out-of-state programs clinicaling in Mississippi, fall under IHL's standards and its Nursing Education review. The Board of Nursing remains the licensing contact Clarkson lists.
Can a PA precept me in Mississippi?
Clarkson's November 2023 clinical sheets bar PA preceptors in Florida, Oklahoma, Arizona and Maryland, and Mississippi is not on that list. Track rules still apply: FNP students may learn from an MD, DO, PA or NP; AGACNP students may use a PA, though any NP they train with needs acute care certification; PMHNP students lose the PA option after NRS 830.
I'm relocating to Mississippi mid-program. What changes?
Moving into a Meets state keeps you inside Clarkson's map, but change the permanent address in MyCC promptly; Policy OG-33 ties your state answer to it. Sort out an RN license effective in Mississippi before any clinical there, and tell your Graduate Nursing advisor early.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-27
We check these pages against Clarkson College's own catalog, program pages and published nursing documents. Your course faculty and Graduate Nursing advisor have the final word.
Clarkson asks you to find your preceptor. We make the search the easy part.
Tell us your Clarkson track, your city and your next clinical course. We line up preceptors who fit the NRS course and Clarkson's rules, gather the details the site and preceptor agreement asks for, and flag early whether the site needs a new affiliation agreement.
- Preceptors matched to the course: all-ages primary care for FNP, acute care units for AGACNP, psychiatric providers for PMHNP
- License, experience and site details checked against Clarkson's rules before the agreement is filed
- Every clinical course planned in sequence, close to home in a state where Clarkson's graduate nursing meets requirements
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