This page provides an outline for how to build a Merit achievement that incorporates students who do not have majors seamlessly. In order to personalize the achievement for your students you will need to prepare a spreadsheet of student data to use as placeholders throughout the achievement. Here are the placeholders used in this story:
- FIRST NAME*
- LAST NAME*
- HOMETOWN*
- ZIP CODE*
- EMAIL ADDRESS*
- MAJOR
- MAJOR INTRO - A sentence fragment that will precede the major field in your story.
*= Data required by Merit
Please note that in order to make this work you must do the following things while preparing your spreadsheet:
- Sort your spreadsheet by the major column to locate all of the undeclared or undecided majors. Learn more about sorting a spreadsheet.
- Remove the Undeclared or Undetermined text from your major column. This cell should be blank for everyone who has no official major.
- Add a column to your spreadsheet called MAJOR INTRO (or something like it).
- Every student who has text in the Major column should have "is majoring in" in this cell.
- Every student who does not have text in the Major column should have "has yet to determine a major" in this cell.
When you write your story template you will want to use both the Major and Major Intro columns as placeholders. Your sentence should look something like this:
[First Name] [Last Name] [Major Intro] [Major].
Depending upon whether or not the student has a major, this text will eventually look like one of the following sentences:
- John Smith is majoring in English.
- John Smith has yet to determine a major.
Achievement Title & Summary
Your achievement title and summary will be used for the online version of your story and shared across social media. They will also appear on your school's Merit page.
Your summary should act as a comprehensive overview of the achievement. After your summary, readers will see a list of students who are part of the story.
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Achievement Title: Students Named to Merit University's Fall Dean's List Achievement Summary: Merit University is proud to recognize academic excellence by naming high achieving students to the Fall 2026 Dean's List. This prestigious honor recognizes students who have achieved a GPA of 3.5 or higher and is a testament to students' dedication to academic excellence. |
Individual Story
Your Merit achievement will create personalized online stories for each of your students. Throughout this story you will insert placeholders for the data from your spreadsheet. These placeholders are in [BRACKETS] in the text below.
This version of your story can also be sent to newspapers interested in just one student. Merit will automatically turn it into an individual press release for you and add your saved boilerplate.
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Headline: [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME] Named to Merit University Dean's List Body: [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME], of [HOMETOWN], was one of more than 530 students named to Merit University's Spring 2026 Dean's List. [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME] [MAJOR INTRO] [MAJOR]. Merit University is proud to recognize academic excellence by naming high achieving students to the Fall Term Dean's List. This prestigious honor recognizes students who have achieved a GPA of 3.5 or higher and is a testament to students' dedication to academic excellence. |
Note: The spreadsheet used in this sample story includes a placeholder for an introduction to the students major (eg. "is majoring in" or "has yet to determine a major").
Group Press Release
This is the version of your press release that will be sent to newspapers interested in multiple students from your spreadsheet. It's a local story that will include a list of only the students from a paper's coverage area.
Your group press release will have an opening, repeating and closing section. The opening and repeating sections will be the same for every newspaper. The repeating section will contain all of your placeholders and will be the only part of the press release that varies from paper to paper. Use the last sentence of your opening to introduce your list of students.
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Headline: Local Students Named to Merit University Dean's List Opening: The following local students were among more than 530 students named to Merit University's Spring 2026 Dean's List: Repeating: [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME], of [HOMETOWN], [MAJOR INTRO] [MAJOR]. Closing: Merit University is proud to recognize academic excellence by naming high achieving students to the Fall Term Dean's List. This prestigious honor recognizes students who have achieved a GPA of 3.5 or higher and is a testament to students' dedication to academic excellence. |
Note: Merit will automatically add your saved boilerplate to the closing section of your group press release.
Add Photos & Publish
Achievements are at their best with images included. If possible, include a photo with your story. Get a picture of the achievement in action or a group shot of the students involved. If you're unable to include a photo, instead consider using a school or department logo. The image(s) you choose will appear on your online stories and also go to media recipients.
Use this template as inspiration to publish your next achievement. Log into your Merit account here. If you’re looking for more details on how to build this template into the Merit achievement workflow you can follow the step by step tutorial here.