In this article, the author presents a three-part analysis of the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, her own doctoral experience in a chemistry program, and similar experiences of other underrepresented minority (URM) graduate students found in the literature as examples of the social and cultural structures URMs experience at the doctoral level--and the subsequent impact on degree completion. The purpose of this article is to understand the higher attrition rate of URMs in general, and more specifically in the discipline of science. Senetta Bancroft will utilize the epistemologies of Bourdieu's (1986/2008) concept of capital, McIntosh's (1988/2004) White privilege, and Fordham's (1988) fictive-kinship to deconstruct the social and cultural structures URMs encounter in doctoral programs.