If you choose to send your achievement to the media, Merit will automatically turn your previously written online student story into an individual press releases. Individual press releases are the version of your story that a newspaper will receive when exactly one person from your list is from a newspaper's coverage area.
Here's an example of what an individual press release looks like:
Your Individual Press Release should be almost identical to your online student story. However, it's important to note that you can make any necessary changes to your press releases before they go out. In Step 6 of Merit's achievement workflow, you can edit or add content to your press releases.
There area a couple things you'll want to keep in mind when reviewing/editing your individual press releases:
Add a Hometown Placeholder to Your Headline
Your individual press release headline will be used as the subject line of the emails that you send to local newspapers. To help drive home that the subject of the press release is relevant to the paper, you may want to add a placeholder for the person's hometown to your press release headline. Here are some examples:
- [John] [Smith], of [Albany], Named to Merit University's Fall 2026 Dean's List
- [John] [Smith], of [Albany], Makes Merit University Dean's List
- [Albany] Resident [John] [Smith] Earns Dean's List Honors at Merit University
Double-check your Boilerplate
Merit will automatically add your saved boilerplate to your press releases. Double-check your Individual Press Release in Step 6 and make any necessary changes to your inserted boilerplate.
Click here to learn more about how to write a press release about multiple local students.
Visit our Template Archive to see more samples and get ideas.