How Post's 8-week terms shape a nurse practitioner student's year

The term model

Post describes its Online Degree Program as running "six, 8-week terms each year," and the American Sentinel College of Nursing & Health Sciences at Post University works inside that model with an 8-week term calendar of its own. Terms take the name of the month they begin in, and because one opens roughly every four weeks, they overlap: the June term is still running when the July term starts.

The overlap is about entry points. Any one student moves through terms back to back, which works out to about six a year. What changes for nurse practitioner students is how much fits into each one.

The NP specializations are term-based only. Post's MSN page lists 8-week terms with monthly class start dates and tells students to take one class at a time, and the catalog turns that into a rule: NP students "are not permitted to take more than one course in an eight-week term." SIMPath, the competency-based option with 16-week semesters, is reserved for non-NP specializations.

Last year's start dates, and where to find this year's

Post has published a 2026-27 academic calendar, with an American Sentinel College Calendar tab on its Academic Calendar page, but that calendar could not be read for this guide. The dates below come from last year's calendar and are shown only to illustrate the rhythm; take your own dates from Post's current calendar or your Student Success Advisor.

ASC students register through the online registration system on their student site, my.americansentinel.edu, and a request made through the Student Portal's registration tile needs the Student Success Advisor's approval. Post's registrar expects registration to be finished by the close of the add/drop period, so the next course, and for NP students the next preceptor, is best settled well before then.

Live sessions inside an online term

No campus visit is required, but the NP specializations include synchronous activities, and Post makes attendance mandatory. Each syllabus sets them. They can include exams and quizzes, virtual presentations, group work, case studies and the final graduation meeting, and missing them may lead to course failure or removal from the program.

In a preceptorship term, clinical days and live sessions have to share the same eight weeks. Put the session dates on the calendar you share with your preceptor before you build the NP Clinical Schedule. Pacing clinical hours shows how a 135-hour course fits around them.

Everything else in the term happens online and near home. Clinicals are arranged in your local area with your approved preceptor, and in-person commencement, for graduates who want to walk with their class, is optional.

Planning preceptors around Post's calendar

We plan your placements term by term. Tell us where you are in the track and we map each preceptorship to the term it should land in, then work backward so every preceptor is confirmed, documented and under a signed preceptor agreement letter a full term ahead.

The affiliation agreement request goes in early enough to clear before Week 1, and your clinical days are arranged around your live sessions and your work schedule. If a term shifts, we re-time the next preceptor instead of starting the search again. On an every-other-month schedule we treat each opening as fixed and have the next preceptor in place before the current course ends, so the paperwork is finished well before the opening arrives. Share your next term through the form below or the contact page.