One of the aims of PhD students' socialisation is for them to accept the norms of the teaching culture and to be fully engaged with and accepted by the university teaching community. However, when PhD students enter universities, they do not necessarily accept all of the university teaching community's cultural norms, nor do they all experience acceptance by the community. This phenomenographic study aims to develop an understanding of the variation across PhD students' lived experiences of their acceptance by the teaching community, and their acceptance of the university teaching community's cultural norms. Twenty-five Estonian doctoral students participated in the study. The study identified three qualitatively different ways in which PhD students experienced acceptance of the teaching culture and acceptance into the teaching community. These were: as equal partners, as knocking against boundaries and as being on the margins.