Clinical Rotation Request Deadlines by Health System (2026)

Verified September 18, 2026. Expanded September 30, 2026. This page collects the clinical rotation request deadlines, required portals, and onboarding lead times that U.S. health systems publish for student placements. Every figure is quoted as published and linked to its source. Nothing is estimated.

Clinical coordinators manage deadlines across many sites, and each site publishes its own on its own page. There has not been a single place to compare them. This page is that place. It is a reference, not a substitute for the site itself: confirm every date directly with the health system before relying on it.

About the sources: rows marked primary come from the health system's own public page. Rows marked secondary are as reported by a university placement office for its graduate nursing students; undergraduate deadlines at the same site may differ. We build Rotation Manager, a clinical placement platform. Three health systems on this page use it; their rows are sourced from public pages the same way as every other row. This page describes each site's published process and does not evaluate it.

Jump to: Published deadlines · Portal listed, no public deadline · Secondary-source deadlines · What the deadlines have in common · FAQ

What the published deadlines have in common

Across the 62 health systems reviewed, 28 publish a specific lead time. A few patterns hold.

• 30 days is the most common request deadline. HonorHealth, Novant Health, Northeast Georgia Health System, Northside Hospital, Phoebe Putney, and Spartanburg Regional all publish it, and Saint Alphonsus uses it for the compliance step.
• The range is wide. Williamson Health publishes 14 days for onboarding paperwork. VA Long Beach accepts requests 10 to 52 weeks out. VA facilities consistently sit near three months because federal onboarding runs on its own clock.
• Two deadline models exist. Most sites use a rolling day count before the rotation start. Others, including Michigan Medicine, the Triangle consortium in North Carolina (WakeMed, UNC Health, Duke), Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport, Baptist Health in Alabama, Cahaba Medical Center, and the UAB clinics, publish fixed calendar dates per term. A coordinator working with both types is managing two different planning problems.
• Deadlines stack. Michigan Medicine publishes four sequential deadlines per term: affiliation agreement, placement request, ACEMAPP submission, and full compliance. The Triangle consortium publishes four per term as well: school request, instructor-led confirmation, preceptor confirmation, and the date by which schools must accept or return what they were offered. Saint Alphonsus separates the request window (45 to 60 days) from the compliance deadline (30 days). Most pages publish only the request date, so the later compliance deadline is often the one that catches programs.
• A published deadline is not a placement. Novant Health publishes a 30-day deadline on its own page and is listed as unavailable to at least one university's graduate students. The deadline tells a coordinator when to ask. The affiliation agreement decides whether the answer can be yes.
• Portals are concentrated. Roughly 20 of the 62 systems route requests through myClinicalExchange. ACEMAPP is second. One regional consortium of three health systems routes through Rotation Manager. A handful still use email, paper forms, or REDCap surveys. Several sites in the Southeast require two separate applications.

Published deadlines, primary source

Each lead time below appears on the health system's own public page, or on a consortium page the system participates in, which the row says.

Portal published, no deadline on the page reviewed

These systems publish their request process and portal but the page reviewed did not state a lead time.

Published deadlines, secondary source

The lead times below are as reported by the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing Office of Clinical Placement for its nurse practitioner and nurse-midwifery students, on a page last revised September 13, 2026 (source). They are included because they are published and specific, and labeled separately because they come from a school rather than the site itself. Undergraduate cohort deadlines at these systems may differ.

Portal named, deadline not publicly verified

Same secondary source. These systems are listed with a portal or process but the deadline is either not stated, sits behind a portal login for enrolled schools, or appears on a linked page that was not reviewed for this table. They are included so a coordinator can see which portal a site uses before contacting it.

Reading a deadline correctly

Three things a request deadline does not tell you.

• Whether there is a compliance deadline behind it. Where a site publishes both, the compliance date is later and usually firmer. Where a site publishes only one, ask which one it is.
• Whether the affiliation agreement is in force. Nearly every page reviewed requires a current, fully executed agreement before a request is considered. Michigan Medicine publishes the agreement deadline nearly a month ahead of the request deadline. Agreement renewal is its own timeline and it runs first.
• Whether the site is accepting students from your program. Capacity, program level, and consortium membership all sit outside the deadline. The deadline is when to ask, not whether the answer is yes.

For a fuller account of what health systems verify before a student starts, see what a health system must verify before a clinical rotation begins.

Frequently asked questions

How far in advance should a school request a clinical rotation?

It depends on the site. Among the health systems that publish a lead time, 30 days before the rotation start is the most common request deadline, and the range runs from 14 days to more than a year. VA facilities commonly sit near three months. Confirm the specific site's published date before planning.

Is the request deadline the same as the compliance deadline?

Not always. Some sites publish a request deadline and a separate, later deadline by which every student must be fully compliant. Where only one date is published, ask the site which step it applies to.

Which portal do most health systems use for student placement requests?

Of the 62 systems reviewed here, roughly 20 route requests through myClinicalExchange and a similar number through ACEMAPP. One regional consortium of three uses Rotation Manager. The remainder use email, online forms, or paper.

Why is a health system on this list but marked unavailable elsewhere?

A published deadline describes the request process. Whether a given program can place students at that site depends on the affiliation agreement, program level, and capacity. Both can be true at once.

How often is this page updated?

Primary rows were verified September 18, 2026, and rows added later are marked with the date in their notes. The page is reviewed quarterly. If you find a published deadline that has changed, contact us and we will re-verify it.

Tracking deadlines like these across many sites is the work Rotation Manager was built for.
Book a 15-minute call
Fifteen minutes. No slide deck.

Method and corrections

Primary rows were read directly from each health system's public page on September 18, 2026, with six rows added from public pages on September 30, 2026. Secondary rows were taken from a university placement office's published site instructions revised September 13, 2026, and are labeled as such. No lead time on this page is estimated or averaged. If a figure here no longer matches the source, the source is correct and we would like to know: contact us.