Alice Sinclair has been predicted to get A grades in her A-levels and offered a place at one of London's most prestigious universities. But her studies might have to be put on hold after she won the TV modelling contest Make Me A Supermodel.

Alice, 18, from Pinner, beat stiff competition from bookies' favourite Kate Ellery of Cardiff, also 18, and blonde Joanna Downes, 22, from Hertfordshire.

She told the Evening Standard: "I'm ecstatic. It just hasn't sunk in yet - I keep expecting the judges to turn around and say 'Sorry, we made a mistake, you haven't really won'."

But Rachel Hunter, underwear model and judge on the show, said: "There's just so much mystery about Alice, she has a lot of presence. That's what makes her special."

Miss Sinclair, who is studying for A-levels in biology, geography and English literature at Henrietta Barnet girls' grammar school in Golders Green, has been offered a place on a course in development geography at the London School of Economics in September.

She said: "I think I'm going to have to go to my teachers and beg them to let me postpone until January," she said.

Her prize is a year's contract with Select modelling agency and a trip to the Maldives, where she will be photographed for Glamour magazine.

Miss Sinclair had never modelled or been spotted by talent scouts before she appeared on the Five reality TV series.

She said: "I've always been a bit gangly and a bit weird looking, and a few people had said to me, 'You should try modelling'. I really wanted to take a gap year and travel but I knew I'd need to earn some money first.

One day I went into the Select agency and they told me about the competition. They were having auditions the next day, so I went along after school in my uniform. Next thing I know, here I am."

Contestants were given advice on diet and keeping fit, but, said Miss Sinclair, keeping things in perspective has been just as important.

"If you're a girl, there's always pressure to be thinner," she said. "But in this industry you've got to be happy with the person you are."

She is the latest teenager from Pinner to create a sensation. In 1992, 18-year-old actress Jane March became known as the "Sinner from Pinner" when she appeared in an explicit French film.