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Undergraduate Preparatory Certificate scholarship winners 2021 announced

11 October 2021

Mandy Liu and Yiying Zhang win a £5000 scholarship in recognition of their outstanding academic performance during their international foundation year.

Mandy Liu (left) standing next to a bookshelf holding a mug; Yiying Zhang (right) in a park

Mandy Liu and Yiying Zhang have won the annual Undergraduate Preparatory Certificate (UPC) Progression Scholarship. 

The award is given each year to the top student on each UPC pathway who has the best academic performance at the end of the course and has a place on a UCL undergraduate degree. The winners receive £5000 towards their tuition fees for the duration of their undergraduate programme. 

Mandy, who won the UPC for Humanities (UPCH) scholarship, progressed to the Faculty of Arts & Humanities to study Comparative Literature BA. 

On winning the award, Mandy said: “It was an honour to receive the scholarship, although I never imagined myself actually winning it until I received the email on results day. So, for me, this award validated one of my mantras: “Do not overthink about the outcomes but focus more on the process of trying.” This motivates me to keep that mindset in the following years of my studies. 

Certainly, it wouldn’t be possible to achieve this without the help from my tutors who were all very supportive and knowledgeable. They tried to push my boundaries over the year and provided me with plenty of valuable suggestions that are still useful for my undergraduate studies.” 

UPCH Coordinator Dr Luke Seaber said: “Mandy was an excellent student, and I’m delighted to see her win this. Her work was intelligent, insightful and well-written, already showing a level that would be good at undergraduate, and I look forward to seeing her achieve further successes as she carries on at UCL.” 

Yiying won the UPC for Science & Engineering (UPCSE) scholarship and moves on to study Biomedical Sciences BSc.  

She said: “To be awarded the UPCSE scholarship is a great honour for me. It’ll be an incentive for me to continue to work hard in the future on my undergraduate degree.  

I would like to express my gratitude to all my UPC tutors, who guided me and helped me throughout the academic year. In particular, I want to thank my personal tutor Nick Lamarti, not only for his professional advice on my academic English studies, but for his kind support and encouragement that helped me get through difficult times.” 

Nick said: “Yiying was a pleasure to teach throughout the academic year and I found her to be extremely conscientious and keen to improve in all areas of her UPCSE course. This scholarship is certainly testament to her dedication and hard work, and I wish her all the best in her current and future studies.”