This study investigates the way in which and the extent to which students engage in social categorization during the process of self-selecting team members for a team assignment. The discovery-oriented method of grounded theory was used. Data were gathered from a sample of 38 undergraduate marketing and management students using the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique. Results indicate that, when faced with having too little information about classmates, students use a variety of social cues to cognitively categorize classmates, and then make a series of inferences about their personality, values, and trustworthiness based on the category in which they are placed. In addition, students use the inferences to help make decisions about who to approach and who to avoid during the self-selection process. Making inferences about classmates based on the social category in which they are placed, rather than on individual merit, is stereotyping. Behaving differently toward classmates based on the social category in which they are placed is discrimination. All 38 students who participated in this study reported that they have used social cues to help decide who to approach and who to avoid during team formation, and 13 reported doing so every time they have self-selected team members.