Caprice on lookout for top city student talent.

SUPERMODEL Caprice will be in Liverpool this weekend to find the city's regional winner of Miss Student UK 2009.

Billed as a "modern day contest to find the brightest, most dynamic, most determined and most popular female student of the academic year", a pounds 10,000 prize is up for grabs.

Among the Liverpool students hoping to get through to the national final is Laura Richardson.

The 20-year-old classics and philosophy undergraduate believes the life experience of entering the contest will help her in the jobs market.

She said: "It is not a beauty contest, it's a about being an all-rounder.

"I worked so hard to get to uni and put my life on hold to study. I put so much effort in, why can't I do something fun and glamorous for a change!"

Georgie Woolams, who is publicising the event at the Studio club on Saturday night, agrees.

She said: "Although some girls who enter do want to be models, this is not a pageant. The idea is for the girls to experience things they will experience after university, like interviews."

Caprice was chosen to help judge the event for following on her career as a model to launch several businesses.

Using the tagline "not just a pretty face", the competition has put girls through their paces with a number of qualifying tasks including poetry writing and film making, as well as encouraging entrants to promote themselves for points that will decide the overall winner.

The aim is to help female students acquire skills that will assist them as they begin on the career ladder.

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HOPE: Liverpool university student Laura Richardson aims for a place in the final of Miss Student UK judged by model Caprice Main Picture: HOWARD DAVIES