This page provides an outline for how to build an achievement about students who all earned the same academic award. 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*
*= 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: Merit University Students Receive the 2026-2027 Excellence in Community Service Award Achievement Summary: Merit University congratulates 10 students who received the 2026-2027 Excellence in Community Service Award. The Excellence in Community Service Award honors graduating seniors who have, used their time, talents and resources in service to the University, their fellow students and the Albany community. |
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] Receives the 2026-2027 Excellence in Community Service Award from Merit University Body: [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME], of [HOMETOWN], received the 2026-2027 Excellence in Community Service Award. The awards ceremony took place at the Albany campus on May 10, 2026. [LAST NAME] was one of ten students to receive the Excellence in Community Service Award. It is awarded to graduating seniors who have, used their time, talents and resources in service to the University, their fellow students and the Albany community. |
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 Earn the Prestigious Excellence in Community Service Award from Merit University Opening: Merit University congratulates the students who received the 2026-2027 Excellence in Community Service Award. The Excellence in Community Service Award honors graduating seniors who have, used their time, talents and resources in service to the University, their fellow students and the Albany community. The following local students received the award: Repeating: [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME], of [HOMETOWN] Closing: Congratulations to our seniors on this prestigious award. We thank them for their contributions in making our world a better place. |
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.