Merit Pages

Students will receive a Merit welcome message to their university email that includes a link to their personal page along with a temporary username and password that can be changed once the student has logged in. Students can also visit the Merit Pages website and click “sign in” on the top right corner to follow the “forgot password” steps to log in with their student email address.

After logging in to their personal page, students can create a customized URL, add a profile picture, bio, work experience, other activities, or connect to their LinkedIn profile. Changes can also be made to personal information such as name, email address, hometown, and major.

It is highly suggested that students customize their Merit Page. Doing so will create a personal brand identity for each student as the University creates stories about their personal achievements to display on their Merit Page profile.

Merit Pages creates a digital page for each student that showcases their achievements as a Utah Tech Trailblazer. Student pages are built automatically as the university shares success stories, creating a digital newsroom that students can share with family, friends, employers, mentors, and others. Stories are automatically shared with students, their family members, their high schools, hometown newspapers, and state legislators.

Not only does Merit Pages allow students to share their achievements, but it also allows them to create a personal profile page which can link to social media accounts, online portfolios, and resumes. This is a great tool for students to showcase their classwork, achievements, and other work experience to future employers. This tool can allow students to get a head start in their career by simply creating their online account.

University writers first identify potential stories and work with relevant departments to generate a list of students who participated in the achievement. Once the story is written, it is published through Merit Pages and shared automatically with students, their families, high schools, hometown newspapers, and state legislators. Shared content will only include information about students that is designated as “directory information” under the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), or that has already been published by the university in another context.

When a student’s name is included in a Merit story, the student and their family members, hometown news outlets, high school principal and counselors, and state legislators are all notified via email. Then, recipients can send the student a congratulatory message as well as share the story on social media. Students may also see a story about their achievement in their hometown or local news media.

Family members whose email addresses are on record with DSU will automatically be alerted each time a new story is posted. Interested parties may also visit the UT Merit Page, search for their student, and click the “follow” button. They will then be prompted to create an account that allows them to follow students’ achievements.

If a student would prefer not to share these stories with the family members associated with their registration, they can remove those email addresses from the automatic distribution by logging into their Merit account, clicking on “My Account” and then clicking “Privacy.”

Merit Pages information is sent to your students’ university email addresses. It is also automatically shared with the family member email addresses the student provided as part of the admissions process. Hometowns and state legislators are determined based on the zip code associated with the students’ permanent address, and high schools are based on the information students provided on their admission application.

Most of this information can be updated in the students’ Merit profile. To view and make changes to which addresses are on file for your account, login to Merit and go to “My Account.” From there, click on “Privacy.”

Because we value student privacy, student pages are set to be private by default and are not searchable on utah.meritpages.com or indexed by search engines like Google, unless students click the “make page searchable” button.

However, stories containing the student’s first and last name will continue to be automatically shared with family, hometown news outlets, state representatives and high school principals and counselors. Students may also share these stories on social media. To view and make changes to who receives their Merit updates, students can click on “Privacy” in their Merit account.

We highly recommend students create a public account. By doing so, they can allow future employers, family, friends and other potential sources to view their personal page.

Students’ Merit Pages are certainly not deactivated upon their graduation. Their page lives on, and they’re still able to log in and update their pages with any content they’d like to add. In fact, this is when their pages really start to pay off. Since their campus email will be their login, they may want to add a personal email address to their account upon graduation to ensure that they can log in years down the road.

Opting out not only removes a student’s page from meritpages.com, but it also prevents the university or any other participating Merit organization from being able to publish achievements about that student in the future. When students first visit their Merit Page, they have an option to click the “opt out” button right away or they can click the “opt out” button at the bottom of the welcome email they receive. If they decide to opt out later, they can click “my account,” “privacy,” and then “opt out” to be removed.