East Hampton High Student Wins National Merit Scholarship

EAST HAMPTON, NY — Tucker Kabbaz was one of only a few students on Long Island to win a National Merit Scholarship honoring the best and the brightest across the nation.

Tucker, who lives in Amagansett and plans to study environmental science, attends East Hampton High School and was awarded a National Merit Colorado College Scholarship.

Tucker was one of more than 3,100 winners of the National Merit Scholarships financed by colleges and universities nationwide. Winners receive between $500 and $2,000 annually for up to four years of undergraduate study.

More than 1.5 million juniors in about 21,000 high schools entered the 2021 National Merit
Scholarship Program when they took the 2019 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship
qualifying test, an initial screening of program entrants. Last fall, about 17,000 semifinalists were named; semifinalists were the highest-scoring program entrants in each state and represented less than one percent of the nation’s seniors.

To compete for merit scholarship awards, semifinalists first had to advance to the
finalist level of the competition by submitting a detailed scholarship application, which included writing an essay and providing information about extracurricular activities, awards, and leadership positions. Semifinalists also had to have an outstanding academic record, and be endorsed and recommended by a high school official, a release said. From the semifinalist group, about 16,000 met requirements for finalist standing, and about half of the finalists will be Merit Scholarship winners in 2021.

"The Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is a coeducational college founded in 1874. It is a liberal arts college, emphasizing broad education in the arts and sciences based on both exchange and evaluation of ideas and on the dissemination of information. An independent college, it is primarily dedicated to the teaching of undergraduates, offering excellence of educational opportunity on an individual basis to each of its 1,800 students," a release said.