USI's 2026-27 calendar for graduate nursing: terms, breaks, deadlines and the clinical sequence

How USI's year is built

USI keeps two calendars. The standard calendar has 16-week Fall and Spring semesters and two summer sessions. The accelerated calendar runs 7-week OL and DL sessions for courses on the accelerated schedule. The Graduate Nursing Handbook speaks in semesters, describes PMHNP clinical hours running through the 16-week semester, and schedules clinical evaluations at midterm and the end of the course, all of which point to full-semester courses.

USI does not state publicly which part of term each NRSG course uses. The Fall 2026 refund schedule lists a 16-week online part of term (OLA, August 17 to December 11) alongside the 7-week sessions, so check the dates on your own registration in myUSI before you promise a preceptor a schedule.

One calendar does not apply to you. The online.usi.edu site, run for USI by Risepoint, advertises six start dates a year, but its list covers business, education, public administration and communication programs, with no nursing programs on it.

Breaks and closures: days with no clinical hours

The handbook allows no clinical hours during university holidays or when courses are not in session. Build these 2026-27 dates into your preceptor schedule before you send it to clinical faculty:

• Fall 2026: Labor Day, September 7; Fall Engaged Learning Day, September 15; Fall Break, October 5 and 6; Thanksgiving recess, November 25 to 29; winter recess, December 23 to January 3.
• Spring 2027: Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 18; Spring Recess, March 8 to 13; university closed, March 26; Spring Engaged Learning Day, March 30.
• Summer 2027: Memorial Day, May 31; Juneteenth, June 18; Independence Day observed, July 5.

The gaps between terms count too. Hours cannot be banked in the weeks between Fall finals and the Spring start, or between Spring and Summer, because courses are not in session. Tell your preceptor that before they build a schedule around you.

Counting back to your paperwork dates

Form G counts 6 weeks back from the clinical rotation's start date, while another handbook page speaks of one month and 4 weeks. The table below counts from the first day of classes as a planning anchor. If your rotation starts later in the term, the Form G date moves with it. USI's clinical deadlines sets out the two rules and which to follow.

For Summer, the anchor depends on your section's real start, since summer courses may follow session or cross-term dates. The registrar's five-year calendar, which runs through summer 2030, lists Fall 2027 and later terms when you need to plan further ahead.

How we plan placements around USI's calendar

USI students choose us because we build every placement backward from these dates. We count your Form G date from your actual section start, hand preceptors a schedule that already skips Labor Day, Fall Break, Thanksgiving, Spring Recess and the summer holidays, and plan all three clinical semesters so each preceptor is approved before Week 3 of their term.

Your placement advisor keeps the next term moving while you finish the current one: the Spring packet goes in before Thanksgiving and the Summer packet well before April. When a hospital's student office works to an earlier calendar than USI's, we plan to that earlier date, so the site and USI both have what they need in time. A mid-term dropout triggers an immediate replacement search, because in a 16-week term every lost week shows up in your hour count. Tell us your next clinical term or use the form below.