Selecting, gaining access to and attending college (or university) in the United States involve markers of legitimacy and prestige as understood through symbolic capital. An entire complex of fine differentiations operate to distinguish such capital in both students and the institutions they attend. Drawing on works of Bourdieu, this article describes the ways that these distinctions were made about symbolic capital and how legitimacy was constructed as observed during nearly one year of ethnographic research in the Office of Admission of a small, private, urban, four-year college. This article offers three separate moments from the larger ethnographic project to highlight (1) embodied markers of symbolic capital for individuals in this field, (2) similar such markers for institutions, and (3) the contested nature and fluidity of legitimacy in practice. (Contains 7 notes.)