A local charity has announced it will now offer scholarships to East Hampton High School rising juniors and seniors to assist with college counseling and standardized test preparation courses.
East Hampton Level Playing Field Foundation founder and President Christopher Kelley was inspired by 2018 graduates and valedictorian and salutatorian Alexander “Nick” Sigua Pintado and Jonathan Gomez Barrientos, respectively. The two immigrated from Central and South America, and in a Newsday article highlighting their high school successes, said they’d struggled to afford college counseling assistance and SAT prep like most of their classmates, which made it that much more challenging.
“During the college admissions process, I often found myself lost, confused and unprepared,” Sigua Pintado said. “I believe this program can help guide and support other students like me — who may be first generation or just lacking resources — who might feel the same way.”
Kelley said East Hampton has a great record for providing scholarships to graduating East Hampton High School seniors to assist in paying college costs, but that lacking was aid to help all students get into elite colleges.
“East Hampton High School is very successful in garnering the support of local businesses, individuals and not-for-profits to provide graduating college-bound seniors with scholarships each May, to the tune of many hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Kelley said. “It occurred to us that while we lavish so much scholarship money on graduating seniors to help defray college costs, there should be a role for assistance for income-qualified students leading up to senior year, possibly beginning in sophomore year, to assist in gaining admission to college. The assistance would be utilized for tutoring for standardized test taking and/or for private college counseling services outside of the realm of the high school’s guidance department.”
Sigua Pintado graduated from Harvard University and Gomez Barrientos graduated from Cornell University in the spring.
“At Cornell, I was lucky to have been part of the McNair Scholars program, which assisted me with gaining admission to graduate school,” Gomez Barrientos said. “Having a similar program here at East Hampton, with the goal of helping students attend elite colleges is especially meaningful to me, because I know first-hand how impactful programs like these can be.
“Navigating the college application process as a first-generation student was challenging,” he continued. “I am delighted to hear that the East Hampton Level Playing Field Foundation will assist students with similar backgrounds to help remove obstacles associated with applying to college.”
The foundation seeks to assist financially-challenged, high-achieving students with these costs. The East Hampton Level Playing Field Foundation also provides mentoring services for students and their parents or guardians in seeking admission and financial assistance to attend highly competitive colleges.
The first scholarship recipients were just selected, and their names will be announced in the coming weeks.
“Level Playing Field is an incredible effort to provide college counseling for our students who could not access it otherwise,” East Hampton High School Principal Sara Smith said. “This is an excellent opportunity for our students who are college-bound and require additional financial support. We are grateful to the committee of community members who took such an initiative to help our students.”
Joining with other East Hampton residents, including Timothy Garneau, Tim Brenneman, Khristine Swickard, Nicole LaBarbara and East Hampton High School graduates Peyton Kelley and Alex Jerez, a board was formed and a nonprofit was established to raise money for the creation of the scholarship system. Members have already spoken with providers of college counseling and test preparation services to try to get beneficial rates.
Contributions and applications for next year’s scholarships can be filed online at EHLPFF.org. The East Hampton Level Playing Field Foundation will also pay travel expenses for students to visit colleges in the search process and provide advice and orientation for students and parents regarding the college admission process.
