The scholarship will see the 18-year-old, who is studying first-year music performance and English at the University of Otago, attend Cambridge University in England.
New Zealand Vicechancellors Committee scholarships manager Kiri Manuera said Miss Hutton had an outstanding academic and music record to date, gaining a New Zealand Scholarship in history and music studies last year.
Among her other achievements, Miss Hutton took joint top place in New Zealand for the 2006 Cambridge International AS level English language and literature and was the recipient of Columba College music and academic scholarships.
She won two awards at the 2007 Otago Regional Chamber Music Competition and was a finalist in the national chamber music competition. She was a member of the Dunedin Youth Orchestra and the City of Dunedin Choir.
Along with her family, she featured in the television programme Colonial Home, a reenactment of early settlers arriving in Canterbury from the United Kingdom.
Last year, Miss Hutton was an Otago Daily Times Class Act recipient.
Born in Pukekohe, Miss Hutton now lives and studies in Dunedin close to Milton where her three siblings, mother Dorothy and father Ross, a local police officer, live.
Celebrating with friends and family at a dinner in Dunedin last night, Miss Hutton said she had only learned of the win seven hours earlier and the news was still sinking in.
‘‘I was absolutely stunned. It's such a privilege. There were seven candidates and they all deserved the scholarship. To be chosen out of a group of such amazing people . . . I am totally floored.''
It was yet to be decided when she would go to Cambridge.
On her return, she hoped to study music and become a conductor, teacher and performer.
The Girdlers Scholarship, worth more than $70,000, is administered by the New Zealand Vice-chancellors Committee and funded by the Girdlers Company, a British organisation that has origins in livery, but now focuses on charitable causes and property ownership.
Miss Hutton is the 44th Girdlers Scholar.