This page provides an outline for how to build a Merit achievement about students who participated in a variety of honor societies over the course of a year. 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*
- CLASSIFICATION - The student's year in school (eg. junior, senior)
- HONOR SOCIETY - The name of the honor society (eg. Phi Kappa Phi)
- DESCRIPTION - A stand-alone sentence that describes the honor society (eg. The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi is an honor society established in 1897 to recognize and encourage superior scholarship without restriction as to area of study.)
- QUALIFICATIONS - A stand-alone sentence that describes the qualifications needed to be named to the honor society (eg. Students must have completed at least 90 credit hours, with at least 24 semester hours at their current institution, and rank in the top 10 percent of their class.)
*= Data required by Merit
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: More than 100 Students Inducted into National Honor Societies at Merit University Achievement Summary: Merit University congratulates the over 100 students who were inducted into 15 different Honor Societies this Spring. Induction ceremonies took place throughout the month of May. |
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] Inducted into [HONOR SOCIETY] National Honor Society at Merit University Body: [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME], of [HOMETOWN], a [CLASSIFICATION] [MAJOR] major, has been inducted into the [HONOR SOCIETY] National Honor Society at Merit University. [DESCRIPTION] [LAST NAME] is one of 100 new Merit University students who were inducted in May. [QUALIFICATIONS] Merit University's 18 honor societies unite like-minded students and host social events with both enrolled students and alumni. |
Note: The spreadsheet used in this sample story includes a placeholder for the student's year in school (eg. junior, senior) and the honor society they participated in (eg. Phi Kappa Phi). It also includes full-sentence placeholders to describe both the honor society itself and the qualifications for being named to it.
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 Inducted into National Honor Societies at Merit University Opening: Merit University congratulates the over 100 students that were inducted into 15 different Honor Societies this Spring. The following local students were inducted: Repeating: [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME], of [HOMETOWN], a [CLASSIFICATION] [MAJOR] major, has been inducted into the [HONOR SOCIETY] National Honor Society. [QUALIFICATIONS] [DESCRIPTION] Closing: Merit University's 18 honor societies unite like-minded students and host social events with both enrolled students and alumni. |
Note: Merit will automatically add your saved boilerplate to the closing section of your group press release.
Add Images and 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.