By Michael McCurry
Earlier this month Campus Life and Student Affairs announced the introduction of a new initiative called Merit. Merit, by Merit Pages Inc., is a multimedia platform that works at gaining positive attention for students by cataloging their accomplishments and activities and presenting them in a personal profile that is broadly accessible to parents, recruiters, other schools, future employers and media outlets. According to Merit’s website, Merit automatically transfers information from each student’s profiles, transforms them into hometown news releases and sends them to local media outlets via a built-in media contact database.
“Our goal at Merit is to allow colleges to celebrate and share the success of their students easily and often,” said Merit President and Founder Colin Mathews. “Attending and completing college is a big deal, and universities like Drew can now tell the stories of every student. Better yet, doing that builds a verified, online record of student accomplishments that employers love.”
“Since launching in 2013, hundreds of colleges around the U.S. have signed up with Merit–from small private schools like Bates to giant public flagships like the University of Alabama. Every one of those schools recognizes that students deserve to have their story told,” said Mathews.
Student reaction has been mixed so far. When asked if she would be interested in using Merit, Genevieve Windbiel (‘20) said, “No definitely not. It feels braggy and somehow invasive.” On the other hand, Paige Sklar (‘19) said, “I think this is really cool and it’s great that Drew is dedicated to ‘showing off’ their students.” She continued, “I like it. I’ve never heard of Merit before, but it seems like a great idea!”
For more information on how to start Merit, email Campus Life and Student Affairs at stuaff@drew.edu.
