EKU students in Delaware: open programs and a board that wants notice
Every EKU online nursing program is open to Delaware residents: EKU lists Delaware among its SARA states without restrictions, and both licensure tables mark it Meets Requirements. Delaware's distinctive step belongs to the school. Before an out-of-state program uses a Delaware clinical facility, it must notify the Delaware Board of Nursing and send in agreements, preceptor names and license copies.
Plan a Delaware clinical site
Tell us your EKU program, your county and your specialty. Your placement advisor gathers the details Delaware's Board expects from the start.
EKU's Delaware status
| Program | EKU status for Delaware | Licensure table result |
|---|---|---|
| MSN FNP | Enrolling; nothing restricts Delaware | Meets Requirements |
| MSN PMHNP | Enrolling; nothing restricts Delaware | Meets Requirements |
| Post-MSN FNP and PMHNP certificates | Enrolling via the MSN table | Meets Requirements |
| Post-master's DNP | Enrolling; no DNP limit published | No table (not a licensure degree) |
| RN to BSN | Enrolling | Meets Requirements |
With no campus visits in EKU's online programs, a Delaware resident's clinical hours are planned in Delaware, and each placement site outside Kentucky gets reported to EKU, a rule set out in the graduate catalog.
What Delaware's Board asks of out-of-state schools
Delaware's Board regulation, Title 24, section 1900 of the state's Administrative Code, puts a notice duty on schools based elsewhere. The Board hears from the school before a Delaware clinical facility is first used, and receives a packet that covers:
- written evidence of approval by the school's own state board, or of national accreditation (EKU's MSN and DNP are CCNE accredited)
- a copy of every signed clinical agency contract
- what the school requires of the faculty and preceptors who supervise its students
- which faculty and preceptors will be used, by name, matched to their sites
- copies of each one's current license, Delaware or multistate
Separately, Delaware signs off on each facility before students arrive, based on school-submitted forms, and may send Board representatives to look. Nothing in these rules sets graduate programs apart from prelicensure ones. The paperwork is EKU's, yet a preceptor whose name, license and site facts are settled early lets EKU answer Delaware quickly.
Full practice, preceptors and Delaware settings
AANP rates Delaware full practice. Delaware's own definition of a preceptor is modest, a nurse with a valid license whose education reaches the BSN or beyond, while an online program's faculty member who teaches or precepts inside a Delaware facility must hold a license or privileges that reach the student's intended role, or go beyond it. Kentucky's regulation, which governs EKU's programs, lets an APRN, a physician or a physician assistant precept. A Delaware NP or physician fits both states' language most neatly; check with EKU before suggesting anyone else.
Around 588,000 Delawareans live in the Wilmington corner of the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington metro, and Dover's metro and the Seaford micropolitan area are smaller. Beebe Healthcare, ChristianaCare and Bayhealth, plus the pediatric system Nemours Children's Health (its Delaware hospital sits in Wilmington), are examples of the state's systems, each with its own student process. For a smaller-town setting in NSC 876, which EKU's catalog calls a concentrated rural primary care practicum, the Seaford area lies outside Delaware's metros.
Licensing: the NLC now, the APRN Compact later
Delaware's compact participation goes back to January 19, 2018. Your Delaware license covers a home-state site, and a nurse from neighboring Maryland, Pennsylvania or New Jersey, all compact states, can practice in Delaware on the multistate license issued at home. EKU asks that each RN license you hold stay unencumbered; the license guide covers Nursys and the rest.
On August 4, 2021, Delaware became an APRN Compact state on paper, and only four other states have enacted it too. Seven enactments are needed to switch it on, and NCSBN reported in May 2026 that its board wants the compact redesigned, so Delaware NPs hold no multistate APRN privilege today.
Why Delaware EKU students choose us
Kentucky's rule has EKU securing your preceptors while you keep a voice in the choice (what that means). In Delaware we give that voice substance: a preceptor in your specialty near Wilmington, Dover or downstate, with the name, license and site details Delaware's Board asks EKU for gathered alongside EKU's own preceptor information form. We start early because Delaware's filings come before the first clinical day, and we stay on call through the internship, ready to search again if a preceptor drops. Request help.
Questions EKU students ask
How early should I propose a Delaware site for an EKU clinical?
EKU publishes no deadline, but Delaware wants the school's notice and filings before a facility is used, and it approves facilities before students are assigned. Add EKU's own review and any agency agreement, and a proposal made the term before your clinical course is sensible. The agency agreements guide explains why contracts take time.
Can I enroll in EKU's DNP from Delaware?
Yes. EKU names no DNP restriction for Delaware and lists it with its unrestricted SARA states. Delaware's rules reach all nursing education programs, so ask EKU whether the Board notice applies to DNP Experience hours at a Delaware site. The DNP guide covers the 1,000-hour rule and site approval.
I live in Maryland. Could my EKU clinical site be in Delaware?
Maryland issues multistate licenses and Delaware honors them, so the license side works. EKU has published nothing about clinicals outside your state of residence, and Delaware's filings would still apply to the site, so ask your faculty first. The Maryland guide explains EKU's separate Maryland condition.
Will Delaware's APRN Compact law matter when I finish EKU?
Not for now. With five enactments against the seven it needs, and NCSBN working on a redesign, the compact is dormant. APRN licensure remains a state-by-state matter, so check with the board wherever you intend to practice after certification, and watch for news of the redesigned compact.
Related pages
Last checked 2026-09-25
We check these pages against EKU's own catalog, program pages and handbooks, and Kentucky's regulations. The current MSN Student Handbook, your course and your faculty have the final word.
EKU secures your preceptor. Your input decides how well it fits your life.
Tell us your EKU program, where you live and when your next clinical course starts. We find preceptors in your community who fit the course and prepare everything EKU reviews, so the option you put forward is ready to approve.
- Preceptors matched to the course: family primary care for
NSC 800andNSC 876, psychiatric care forNSC 886 - Preceptor, license and site details organized for EKU's preceptor information form
- In your own community, wherever EKU enrolls students and you hold your RN license
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