This study explores how the college-going culture at a no-excuses charter school with high college enrollment rates shaped students’ worldviews and trajectories. Drawing on 7 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I found that the school boosted college enrollment through student compliance to the college accountability policies rather than through the transmission of dominant cultural resources. Alignment between a student’s worldview and the school’s approach mediated their ability to draw on their full range of resources to participate in the college choice process and forge postsecondary trajectories they believed in. These findings foreshadow the potential impacts of “College for All” accountability structures and underscore the importance of cultural congruence in college-going cultures.

本研究探讨了大学入学率高的无借口特许学校的大学文化如何塑造学生的世界观和发展轨迹。通过 7 个月的民族志实地考察，我发现学校通过学生遵守大学问责政策而不是通过传播主导文化资源来提高大学入学率。学生的世界观和学校方法之间的一致性调节了他们利用全部资源参与大学选择过程和建立他们所相信的高等教育轨迹的能力。这些发现预示着“全民大学”问责制结构和强调文化一致性在大学文化中的重要性。