School-based social capital (SBSC) is defined as key support and resources embedded in students’ networks with institutional agents. Employing SBSC as the theoretical framework, this study interviewed 13 senior secondary school staff in a Chinese (Cantonese)-medium mainstream school in Hong Kong and examined the institutional provision of SBSC for South/Southeast Asian minority students during their university/college choice processes. The data challenged the functionality of SBSC and revealed that staff members perceived and acted as gate-keeping rather than empowerment agents in the school wherein they identified minority students as being “deficient” and “lazy”. As a result, staff were not trustful of minority students’ academic capabilities for university and were reluctant to expose them to instrumental resources/support for university readiness. The situated forms of SBSC reflected the hierarchical social structure positioning underprivileged minorities as the non-Chinese non-Anglo underclass, who often encounter the institutional exclusion in school education.