Adding Student Degrees

One of the most common placeholders (especially in graduation achievements) is the degree the student earned. Their degree helps create a personalized story and calls out your students' ultimate goal at your institution. This page provides some tips and tricks for including them in your Merit achievements.

Degrees

When building/requesting your list of student data, make sure students' degrees are included. You can also supplement the degree with their major if you'd like.

Here are some examples of different ways you can include students' degrees in your Merit achievements.

  • [John] [Smith], of [Albany], earned a [Bachelor of Arts]
  • [John] [Smith], of [Albany], graduated with a [Bachelor of Arts]
  • [John] [Smith], of [Albany], earned a [Bachelor of Arts] in [English].
  • [John] [Smith], of [Albany], graduated with a [Bachelor of Arts in English] 

 

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Latin Honors

Some of your students are going to graduate with honors. To recognize their honors, you will want to add a separate [Honors] column to your spreadsheet. Insert a placeholder for it after the word "graduated". If a student doesn't have data in that cell, Merit will skip it. 

  • [Smith] graduated [cum laude] with a [Bachelor of Arts] in [English].
  • [Smith] graduated [ ] with a [Bachelor of Arts] in [English].

 

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Multiple Degrees

Some students will likely work toward multiple degrees at your institution. You can recognize these students by keeping the student in one row in your spreadsheet and adding a column for their second degree. 

Because most of your students will only have one degree, this column will be blank for many of your students. The language in your sentence will need to work for both students with one degree and students who earned multiple degrees. There are multiple ways you can achieve this:

 

Option 1: Include the word "and" in the [Degree 2] cell inside your spreadsheet. If you're also adding a second major, add the word "in" to your [Major 2] column.

  • [Smith] earned a [Bachelor of Arts] [and a Bachelor of Science].
  • [Smith] earned a [Bachelor of Arts] in [English] [and a Bachelor of Science] [in Biology].
  • [Smith] earned a [Bachelor of Arts] in [English] [and a Bachelor of Science] [in] [Biology].

 

Option 2: Add a column for the word [and] to your spreadsheet. Only the students who have information in your [Major 2] column will have an "and" in this column. It will be blank for everyone else. If you're also adding a second major, add the word "in" to your [Major 2] column.

  • [Smith] earned a [Bachelor of Arts] [and a] [Bachelor of Science].
  • [Smith] earned a [Bachelor of Arts] in [English] [and a] [Bachelor of Science] [in Biology].
  • [Smith] earned a [Bachelor of Arts] in [English] [and a] [Bachelor of Science] [in] [Biology].

 

Option 3: Combine both majors into one column in your spreadsheet.

  • [Smith] earned a [Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science].
  • [Smith] earned a [Bachelor of Arts in English and a Bachelor of Science in Biology].

 

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Adding Articles (a and an)

If some of your students are earning associate's degrees and others bachelor's degrees, your sentence may require an article before the degree. There are a few ways you can handle this:

 

Option 1: Insert the word "prestigious" (or another similar word) before your degree placeholder to eliminate the need for articles altogether. 

  • [John] [Smith], of [Albany], earned a prestigious [Bachelor of Arts] degree.
  • [John] [Smith], of [Albany], graduated with a prestigious [Associate of Arts] degree.

Alternatively, you could insert your's institution's name before the degree:

  • [John] [Smith], of [Albany], graduated with a Merit University [Bachelor of Arts] degree.
  • [John] [Smith], of [Albany], graduated with a Merit University [Bachelor of Arts] degree.

 

Option 2: Use "a/an" in your template to allow for some variation.

  • [Smith] graduated with a/an [Bachelor of Arts] degree.
  • [Smith] graduated with a/an [Associate of Arts] degree.

 

Option 3: Insert a column for the leading [Article] into your spreadsheet. To do this, sort your spreadsheet according to the [Degree] column and insert either “a” or "an" into the [Article] column.

  • [Smith] graduated with [a] [Bachelor of Arts] degree.
  • [Smith] graduated with [an] [Associate of Arts] degree.

Note: Always be careful when sorting your spreadsheet. Make sure you are sorting the entire spreadsheet, and always double-check your records to make sure no sorting errors were made.

 

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