Student imports help create Merit pages for all of your students. Each time you perform an import, you will need a spreadsheet of your enrolled students. Click here if you need help requesting a spreadsheet of data from your registrar.
This page will teach you the ins and outs of creating and managing a spreadsheet of students for import into Merit:
Spreadsheet Formatting
When assembling your spreadsheet, there will be certain things you will always want to do and some you will want to avoid. Use the list below to verify that your spreadsheet is formatted correctly:
| File Type - Save your document as an Excel (.xls or .xlsx) or Comma Separated Values (.csv) spreadsheet | |
| Headers - The top row of your spreadsheet must contain unique headers for each column. No repeating column names | |
| Tabs/Sheets - Student data must appear in the first tab of your spreadsheet. Merit will NOT use data from other tabs | |
| Special Characters - Your column headers and document name should not contain any special characters. Use only letters, numbers, spaces and dashes |
Required Student Data
Merit requires unique columns for these five fields in every spreadsheet. Use this list below to verify that your spreadsheet contains each required data set:
| First Names - Middle names or initials must be in their own separate column | |
| Last Names | |
| Hometowns | |
| Zip Codes | |
| Campus Email Addresses - If students do not yet have a campus email, use a personal email address instead |
Additional Student Data
Your import spreadsheet should also contain any additional columns of personalized info that you plan to save in Merit. Here are some examples of student data that are commonly saved:
| Majors - Use the full name of the major and not an abbreviation | |
| Class Years - Use students' numeric class years (2026) and NOT their classification (freshman) | |
| High School CEEB Codes - These six-digit numerical codes help Merit deliver alumni alerts to each students' high school | |
| Parent Email Addresses - Once added to Merit, every time you publish an achievement about a student, you will also send an email alert to their parents. Parent emails can either be in multiple columns in your spreadsheet or in one column (separated by commas) | |
| Personal Email Addresses - Including columns of both campus and personal email addresses for your students will help ensure that students can access their accounts after graduation |
Review Your Data
Before uploading your spreadsheet into Merit, review the document, making sure the data is accurate. While doing so, be on the lookout for the following things:
| International Students - Give students outside the US a zip code of 00000 or 0. Merit will create online-only stories for them | |
| Duplicate Students - Students should NOT appear on multiple rows in your spreadsheet (typically due to multiple majors/degrees). Merit will ignore these duplicates | |
| All Caps - The data in your spreadsheet is added to Merit exactly as it appears in your document. Convert any names, hometowns or degrees in all capitals to title case before uploading | |
| Unused Data - Merit will not save any unused information from your spreadsheet, but regardless, you should remove columns like student ID numbers, street addresses, phone numbers, and GPAs from your document |