In this think piece, the author explores a conundrum and tension related to using rubrics to evaluate doctoral work. She ponders whether the use of rubrics provides beneficial ways for students to "crack the code" of academia, and/or whether the use of rubrics is perhaps a tool to engender conformity. With these competing ideas in mind, the author considers in what ways one might press for means to provide this on-ramp of access for students to the existing power structures, while at the same time seeking to change academia, to more equitably provide spaces for a range in ways of knowing, growing, expressing, framing, and presenting research. How might scholars support their students in engaging in what Rochelle Gutiérrez describes as simultaneously "playing the game" while also "changing the game?" Invoking challenges to existing power structures, such as those voiced in critical race theory and decolonizing epistemologies, this essay speaks to the tensions within the sacred spaces in academia which have been established by those with the greatest historical power.