This qualitative study explores the perceived impact of college-going capital gained during participation in a college access program. In three, semistructured interviews spanning the first-year college experience, 10 first-year college students who participated in a college access program articulate the value of access programming and also raise questions about the long-term efficacy of access lessons. Findings reveal that participants experienced surprise and discomfort around two primary issues: their racial and socioeconomic difference from their more majoritarian peers and their academic underpreparedness for college-level work. Students' narratives of college revealed how the college access program may be presenting a false reality of college in some ways. Implications include the need to restructure college access programming and the need for higher education institutions and college access programs to partner together to better support underrepresented students.