I was curious. If schools require students to find their own preceptors, how do they make sure students are learning the skills and getting experience? It seems so highly variable.

I can only speak for my program, but I assume this is similar to what other programs do. My program has a faculty member who manages a certain number of students throughout their clinical experience. There are several ways in which this faculty member can monitor me:

1) All encounters are logged into an online database, so she can both run metrics and read my note on each encounter.

2) She is in regular contact with my preceptor, I'm not sure how much detail she asks my preceptor for.

3) She does site visits on occasion.

4) We have to present case studies on a certain number of patients.

I would assume this would be fairly similar to how it is done if you were in a program that provides the preceptors as well.

Some schools, such as the one zmansc went to, handle the "find your own preceptor" thing very well. They help you if you have trouble, work out the contract details, and work closely with your preceptor.

With the complete lack of standardization in NP programs, though, the quality of programs varies considerably. There are many programs out there that provide almost no help and barely even vet the preceptor. Student who are unable to secure a preceptor simply fail out and the school doesn't really care. This is why going to schools that aren't reputable and don't care about anything other your tuition check is such a bad idea. If you think you're application isn't "good enough" for a real NP school, work on it. Don't just give up and go to a bottom of the barrel, for profit program. You will regret it.

As zmansc states, my program is very similar. My instructor and clinical coordinators have been in touch with my preceptor several times during my clinical rotations. We also have to submit our daily clinical notes and need to cover differential diagnoses, what we may or may not have done the same as our preceptor. We also have documentation of the time we spend with our preceptor and research in regards to patients. There are also mid-term and final evaluations of the student and the preceptor/site.

So it seems there is outside work done to make sure the all students have the same fund of knowledge.

Not all for profit schools are horrible. I'm enrolled at chamberlain MSN FNP and do not regret it at all.i work for md Anderson and they offer tuition reimbursement for them as well. The program so far is a lot of work and the instructors offer feedback within 4-6 hours.