This article seeks to understand how students from the lower and lower-middle classes subjectively experience their entrance into and stay at eight elite university institutions in Chile. It employs the methodology of sociological portraits. The results show that while these youngsters regard their entrance into an elite university as a meritorious achievement, they face, in turn, strong pressures from their families, a constant anguish about being socially maladapted to the ambit of an elite university and expectations that they will wholly devote themselves to their studies, at the sacrifice of the normal leisure activities and social life of youngsters of their age. © 2022 Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. All rights reserved.