Past work and college–access programs often treat college knowledge as discrete pieces of information and focus on the amount of available college information. I use ethnographic and multiwave interview data to compare college–aspiring working- and middle–class black 9th and 11th graders across almost two years in high school along with their post–high school updates. Respondents were exposed to college–going messages but faced racial constraints and unclear expectations for college preparation and help seeking. Working-class respondents drew on hopeful uncertainty—a repertoire of hope for college admissions but uncertainty in the specifics—and they waited for assistance. Twelfth-grade working–class respondents experienced the effects of counseling problems and frustrations near application time. Middle-class and some working–class respondents used a repertoire of competitive groundwork to improve their competitiveness for four–year admissions, targeting their help seeking to navigate impending deadlines and late–stage counseling problems. My findings point to the timing and process of activating repertoires of college knowledge within a high school counseling field, suggesting the need to reconceptualize college knowledge in research on racial and class inequality in college access.

过去的工作和大学入学计划通常将大学知识视为离散信息，并关注可用的大学信息量。我使用人种学和多波访谈数据来比较高中近两年内有抱负的大学和中产阶级黑人 9 年级和 11 年级学生以及他们高中后的更新。受访者接触到上大学的信息，但面临种族限制以及对大学准备和寻求帮助的期望不明确。工人阶级受访者利用充满希望的不确定性——对大学录取充满希望，但具体情况不确定——他们等待援助。十二年级的工人阶级受访者在接近申请时经历了咨询问题和挫折的影响。中产阶级和一些工人阶级的受访者使用一系列竞争性基础工作来提高他们四年入学的竞争力，目标是帮助他们解决即将到来的截止日期和后期咨询问题。我的发现指出了在高中咨询领域激活大学知识库的时机和过程，表明需要在大学入学机会中的种族和阶级不平等研究中重新定义大学知识。