2015 Press Releases
UCC to award scholarships to outstanding students
UCC President Dr Michael Murphy and UCC’s Senior Vice-President Academic and Registrar, Professor Caroline Fennell will award Quercus Entrance Scholarships to 77 students this evening (Thursday, November 26).
"The Quercus Entrance Scholarship Awards Ceremony is a very special night in the UCC calendar. It allows us to mark and celebrate the extraordinary academic achievement of 77 of our first year students along with their families, former school principals, teachers and guidance counsellors,” said Professor John O’Halloran, Vice-President for Teaching & Learning at UCC and Director of UCC’s Quercus Talented Students' Programme.
“Excellence underpins all that we do in UCC and these Quercus Entrance Scholars epitomise academic excellence. We are proud to have them as our students and we look forward to seeing them grow in the next number of years at UCC."
Leaving Certificate results, or equivalent, attained by Quercus entrance scholars clearly demonstrate the University’s continuing ability to attract the brightest students to its campus. This year 54 students achieved between 600 – 625 points and 23 students achieved between 580 and 595 points.
Sarah Jameel, a Quercus Active Citizenship Scholar and second year dentistry student at UCC, will deliver an address at the ceremony.
“I am the result of a diverse, inclusive and holistic education, and the teachers that never gave up on me and taught me how to think, not what to think. This education in life is unmatchable and is eternal. And here at University College Cork, I feel that same vibe,” Jameel commented.
Jameel, an ambassador for Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution movement, recently became a worldwide hit with her 'Love Letter to Beirut, Paris and Beyond', an emotional peace appeal after the Paris and Beirut terror attacks that went viral and was picked up by The Huffington Post in the US.
“We don’t choose which part of the world we are born into. It’s not a decision we get to make until we are years out of utero,” she wrote.
Author of viral 'Love Letter' to speak as @UCC honour outstanding students https://t.co/vLK7KMj9We (SN) pic.twitter.com/t2D6SEziZB
— Irish Examiner (@irishexaminer)
November 25, 2015
@UCC @sarahjameel @johbees “I am the result of ... the teachers that ... taught me how to think, not what to think." Her words say it all.
— Corkdfas (@corkdfas)
November 26, 2015
Quercus Entrance Scholarships are competitively offered on the basis of results in the Irish Leaving Certificate or equivalent and valued at €2,000.
Of the scholarships, 22 students will be awarded in the College of Science, Engineering &
Food Science, 19 in the College of Arts, Celtic Studies & Social Sciences, 19 in the College of Medicine & Health and 17 in the College of Business & Law.
Whilst the majority of scholarship recipients represent Cork city and County, students came from other counties including Westmeath, Dublin, Kildare, Wexford, Waterford, Clare, Limerick, Tipperary and Kerry, as well as other countries including France and Germany.