For decades, success in Taiwan's educational system followed a clear path: study hard, ace the test, and secure admission offers. But what happens when the cultural rules that once guaranteed success suddenly shift? In Taiwan, a major reform has transformed university admissions—from a rigid exam-based system to a more Americanized, holistic approach. This shift disrupted long-standing pathways of advantage, leaving students and families unsure of which achievements and traits would now “count.” In this talk, Dr.Liu features how teachers develop a new form of cultural labor referred to as bridgework--speculating about what gatekeepers desire and helping students attune their applications to meet those expectations. Bridgework entails three distinct logics:  selling class, selling disadvantage, and selling potential. Selling class transforms middle-class students’ privilege into disciplinary signals. Selling disadvantage emphasizes working-class and minority’s adversity backgrounds while concealing their styles of representation. Selling potential repackages underprepared students’ modest and irrelevant past experiences as indicators of future promise. By unveiling how culture gains its contingent value in an uncertain field, this talk extends Bourdieu's theory and sheds new lights on the fields of education, culture, and stratification.