The McNair Scholars Program continues to be pivotal towards increasing diversity within graduate schools in the USA, particularly within doctoral programmes. The programme provides underrepresented undergraduate students with opportunities to learn about research and applying to graduate schools, which otherwise might not be available for these students. Every academic year, students who come from various socially marginalised backgrounds such as low-income, Black, Latino/a, among other social categories, work on learning research skills in the McNair programme to become attractive prospective graduate students. The purpose of this study was to understand students' work within McNair programs, particularly when it came to completing McNair assignments. Based off an institutional ethnographic methodology, this study highlights how students lived the discourse of being McNair scholars.