This article examines the access to higher education at Universidad de Concepci & oacute;n, Chile in South America, during the early years of the 20th century. This research focuses on the career choice by women, who opted mostly for the areas of pharmacy and education, reflecting both adherence to university's explicit offerings and traditional gender roles related to caregiving. The central question addresses how women accessed to university, the careers selected and the moment in their life trajectories when they entered higher education. Using enrollment data, administrative documents, public speeches from university authorities and press articles of the time, it is revealed that these middle-class women were aware of the gender roles of their time, and pursued improvement in their lives through higher education, respecting the limits established by the social norms of the time. The article locates these students and their individual decisions at an intersection between the rhetoric of the time and their individual efforts to receive education and to obtain a profession.