This page provides an outline for how to build a Merit achievement about athletes signing letters of intent to join your school. 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*
- HIGH SCHOOL - The high school the player attends/attended (eg. Albany High School)
- POSITION - The position the athlete plays (eg. linebacker, safety)
*= 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 Football Team Signs 15 Athletes to National Letters of Intent Achievement Summary: Players from across the state have signed a National Letter of Intent to become Badgers and play football at Merit University. |
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] Signs National Letters of Intent to Become an MU Badger. Body: [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME], of [HOMETOWN], a senior [POSITION] at [HIGH SCHOOL], has signed a National Letter of Intent with The Merit University to play football, beginning in the Fall 2026 semester. The Badgers have won back-to-back-to-back champions in the Noble Conference and winners of 23 games in the past three seasons. We are excited for these new student athletes to join the Fall 2026 program. |
Note: The spreadsheet used in this sample story includes placeholders for the players' high schools (eg. Albany High School) and positions (eg. linebacker, safety).
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 Student Athletes Sign National Letters of Intent to Become MU Badgers Opening: Merit University football team signed 15 athletes to National Letters of Intent as parents, coaches, teammates, and friends cheered them on as they committed to continuing their athletic careers at The Merit University. The following local students signed: Repeating: [FIRST NAME] [LAST NAME], of [HOMETOWN], a senior [POSITION] from [HIGH SCHOOL]. Closing: The Badgers have won back-to-back-to-back champions in the Noble Conference and winners of 23 games in the past three seasons. We are excited for these new student athletes to join the Fall 2026 program. |
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.