Every Merit achievement focuses on your students. They are the stars of the story, and each one of them will have a story written just about them. These stories will be added to their personal Merit pages and can be shared with students' families, local newspapers, and more. Here's an example of what an online student story looks like:
Your student's online story is made up of two parts: a headline and body. This page will provide tips for writing student stories. Visit our Template Archive to see more samples and get ideas.
Write a Personalized Story Title
Your headline will appear on your students' online stories and will also be the title of any emails they receive. Hook your readers by making the student the focus of your title.
Try to keep it between 50 and 100 characters, if possible. There are a few things you should do with every title:
- Start with placeholders for the person's first and last names
- Include your school's name or its abbreviation (Merit University or MU)
- Mention the honor they earned (Dean's List)
- Don't use the word "Local" in your online headline
You can use a variety of formats when writing your personalized student title. Here are some variations of a dean's list title:
- [John] [Smith] Named to Merit University Dean's List
- [John] [Smith] Makes Merit University Dean's List
- [John] [Smith] Earns Dean's List Honors at Merit University
- [John] [Smith] Named to Merit University's Fall 2026 Dean's List
Write a Personalized Story
While your story title serves as a very basic introduction for your personalized student story, the body will fill in all of the remaining details. You can include as many paragraphs of information as you need to tell your story. These personalized student stories will be nearly identical to the press releases you're accustomed to writing.
The opening of your story will be the most important part. Again, it should put the student front and center.
Here are a few tips and tricks for writing these stories:
Open With the Student
Your opening sentence should closely resemble your story title. Begin with placeholders for the student's first name, last name and hometown (at a minimum). To make your opening sentence stand out from your headline add details like the date/semester of the event, and the (approximate) number of students who were recognized.
You can include additional placeholders for things like majors in your opening sentence. However, if your spreadsheet includes a lot of placeholders, don't hesitate to use them across multiple sentences. Here is an example:
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[John] [Smith], of [Albany], was among 1,200 students named to Merit University's Dean's List for Fall 2026. [Smith] is a [sophomore] [Biology] major and a graduate of [Albany High School]. |
Avoid the Word "Local"
This version of your story can be turned into an individual press release for local newspapers, but the student will not be local to everyone who reads the story online, so do not use the word "local" anywhere in it.
Add Personalization Throughout Your Story
While most of your personalization will likely fall in your opening paragraph, you can use the student's last name placeholder elsewhere in your story. Adding it to an occasional sentence will help make each story more personal. Here's an example of how you can add a last name placeholder throughout your story:
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[Smith] and all of the students named to Fall 2026 Dean's List were recognized during Merit University's Honors Awards Banquet on Jan. 26. |
You can even add it to a quote from the president or dean of your school:
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"MU would like to congratulate [John] [Smith], and all of our students whose hard work over the semester paid off," said Merit University Matthew Collins. "We look forward to great things to come." |
Boilerplates Aren't Necessary
Your school's boilerplate will not be automatically added to your online story. These stories are at their best when they're to the point and focused on each student and not the institution, so skip the boilerplate in this version of your story. Your saved boilerplate will get added to your press releases later on.
Pro Tip: Don't tease a list of students at any point in your students' online stories. Saying something like the "The following student was named to the Dean's List:" will make the story less personal. Remember to always make the student the star of the story
Learn about how to turn your online student story into personalized press releases.