Welcome! The Merit-based Program, Merit Immersion for Students and Teachers (MIST) focuses on recruiting and retaining students in biology, chemistry, and mathematics. MIST is an expansion of our current Merit Programs for Emerging Scholars at the University of Illinois.

The main goals of the program are to:
• Broaden the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) student base to include the large proportion of students who have not yet declared their major.
• Train current and future teachers at the high school and college levels to implement their own Merit-style Programs.
• Develop readily accessible online resources for students and professionals.

Merit Program Receives S-STEM Grant!

The Department of Mathematics, Department of Chemistry, and the School of Integrative Biology are thrilled to announce the start of the Merit Fellows Scholarship Program this upcoming academic year!  The program (funded by the National Science Foundation) will provide substantial financial support for academically talented but financially needy Merit students majoring in mathematics, chemistry, or integrative biology.  Along with providing a total of $525,000 in scholarship funds over 5 years, the project will also provide a wide variety of enhanced student support services.  Each Merit Fellow will be paired with both a peer mentor and a faculty mentor for at least their first two years at the university.  These mentors will provide guidance to help the Merit Fellows successfully navigate through these rigorous STEM majors.  The Merit Fellows will also have the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of cohort-building activities such as seminars about effective study strategies in STEM courses, group study sessions, professional development presentations from a variety of speakers, and informal social functions.  Finally, the Merit Fellows, with help from their mentors, will be encouraged to participate in undergraduate research opportunities whenever possible.  We are greatly looking forward to this new project and we are excited about the opportunity to support and interact with our students in new ways.