# Were any of you in gifted classes in school? Did you do well in school?



## Everyday Ghoul

I did extremely well in elementary. I was placed in the gifted program, initially, when I got into public school, because of that. However, it was not made up of nerds or intellectuals. It was made up of the sons and daughters of the town's financially gifted. It was kids, that had to go onto college to save mommy and daddy's reputation. I used to party with one of them. You'd never convince me, that he didn't buy his grades. Not that he was stupid, but he was a barely functioning alcoholic. School was the last thing in the world he cared about. He would sit around in class either sleeping it off or huffing glue and nail polish off the tables with the rest of my questionable crowd. There were a couple of type A girls in the program; cheerleaders, exceptionally kind, straight A's, gifted programs, charity work, etc. However, it wasn't about chess, rpgs, or anything like that. When I was 19, I took my niece and some of her friends out to party after a social event. I was amazed they could even spell their names correctly, but mommy and daddy had money, and lived in the nicer side of town, so there they were in the gifted class. I didn't even meet anyone particularly nerdy in college, but I know they exist. I miss my friend who went to law school. We could bullshit about philosophy and shit no one cares about for hours.

Oh, and I'd like to point out, that it was an ESFP who introduced me to this system, an SJ who sparked my brief interest in economics and politics, and an ISFP who made me first question my religious beliefs.


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## ItsEvan

I was in special classes. For people who couldn't speak English.

I actually spoke my own language when I was a kid. My doctor asked me the same question twice, and I responded in my nonsensical gibberish consistently.

Being in special education was the best. Everyone did their own thing, no one annoyed me or called me weird. Hell, I even had a girlfriend who wore a pink shirt, had pigtails and a speech impediment.

Sad part was when I had to leave because I learned English, and forgot my rubbishspeak. Now I'm regarded as a social pariah, just for being in a comfortable environment with no people to disturb me. I don't have a girlfriend either.

Oh, and I take about four AP classes and a bunch of honors classes. I think I've only had about 9 classes total that were regents.


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## Dania Ross

I was identified as "gifted and talented" when I was eight years old and placed ahead by a grade level in math and science. In addition, I am in honors classes for English, history, and Spanish. I loved school as a kid, and I love learning because to me it's all interesting. I don't like learning for the sake of learning, though - I like knowing that I can use what I've learned in real life. My ESTJ mom and ISTJ dad have encouraged me a lot to do my best and push as hard as I can. A lot of the kids in my program were either SP or NT, with a few SJs and NFs in the mix. 

I don't think being gifted has anything to do with type. The NTs can try saying they've got a monopoly on it (which is why I struggled with my type for so long - I thought I HAD to be a ENTJ or ENTP), but the truth is that every group has its "gifts" and every group has its flaws. It's just a matter of what you do with what you're given.


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## letsride

Dania Ross said:


> I don't think being gifted has anything to do with type. . . It's just a matter of what you do with what you're given.


I agree, I took honors classes and always made the dean's list, but I am in no way "gifted". It had a lot more to do with the effort I put into it, rather than my natural abilities.


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## OrangeAppled

I know more than a few SPs who did well in school & even a few who like academics.

My ESFP sister got a 3.8 gpa without even trying. She would not take honors/advanced placement classes because her friends were not in it. She was officially tested with a 136 IQ (the gifted range). She's an avid reader of novels, biographies, history books & occasionally poetry. She's far from anti-intellectual but finds a lot of intellectual types "pretentious". She also dropped out of college & admits school is not for her. 

I was friends with an ISFP as a child who was an A student. She also went to veterinary school & now works as an animal trainer at a zoo. It seems to me she was both good at & interested in school.

An ESFP college friend did well in school, but was something of an over-achiever & manipulated teachers sometimes into giving her better grades (ie. ploys for sympathy by feigning illness). I don't doubt she is smart, but she certainly tries hard.

However, in GATE I don't recall too many SPs. There were only 10 of us in my grade level, so that's likely why. Like others have said, we simply got to leave class & goof off with projects & puzzles & non-graded assignments. We were given an official IQ test to be placed in it, so I think it was as legit as an IQ test is. It was not a choice to be in it, nor was it based on academic achievements.


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## heavydirtysoul

I was in writing class and I used to be the editor of high school newspaper.


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## bsrk1

if i was interested in something i could read through the chapter the night before the test and usually get a 95+ on the test, really without trying cause i have a good memory. I graduated high school as a national honors society student, but had to work my ass off in classes i hated/ didnt find interesting... math was easy cause its all logic, science was easy cause i found it interesting, english sucked cause i hate it. Forgin language was damn near impossible.


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## robknicker

I did really well in high school, was two years ahead in math and took almost all of the AP courses offered. I was too busy out like hanging out with friends to do many extracurriculars besides a sport though, so I didn't get into any of my top school choices. They were mostly the kind of schools where everyone goes in with very similar academic credentials, so ik a lot of smart people who didn't get in and a couple not as smart people who got into some of them.
I'm going to the like 3rd? best college (not university) though and it's number 9 on forbes so I guess i'd say i was smart. 
I'm still unsure if I'd call it gifted though. I saw it more as cursed for a lot of my life because I wasn't like everyone else and I just wanted to be more normal, and school was hard for me to pay attention in sometimes both because of my personality and because it wasn't challenging enough at times. I would probably consider it a gift now.

I'm a math major now and there's like so many smart people here haha so sometimes I have trouble with the theoretical things in the math classes, or trouble focusing for long enough to understand everything. I am good at studying though and my best class right now (Real Analysis) is pretty theoretical cus it's like proofs and stuff but it's such a social class and everyone works together and it's so challenging I just love it haha. I think the biggest reason is because it's such a social class though.
@bsrk1 i'm totally with you on english
@OrangeAppled I have an ENFP friend who does the manipulative thing too, and has had teachers like write on her report card (when she was in high/middle school) that she was manipulative lol. She does that a little in college too with her spanish professor, they had a really nice dinner together, and she got to tell him all of her excuses for always missing that class (it's her only morning class and she's usually up til like 4a.m. so she sleeps through it by accident a lot., on the other hand, i stay up til the same time but wake up at 730 or 8 every day of the week for class haha i do have coffee next to my bed as a crutch tho)

i think my IQ was 148 when I took a test when I was 12 but i'm not sure how legit the test was


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## MBTI Enthusiast

robknicker said:


> I'm going to the like 3rd? best college (not university) though and it's number 9 on forbes so I guess i'd say i was smart.


Wow... how does Forbes do it's rankings? My university should not be that low. :shocked:


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## Bricolage

I maxed out on the WAIS-IV, which has a ceiling of 160. I'd put my deviation IQ at around 180 - according to some high range tests with decent criterion validity and reliability and so on. I constantly make terrible decisions, especially in relationships, so please refrain from imbuing anything I say with oracular sureness. I'm not even sure why I'm here, and I certainly wouldn't contend I'm special or better than anybody else. All humans have (or should have) precisely the same ontological worth and civil liberties. I guess I'm an intellectual but the word genius creeps me out.


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## robknicker

MBTI Enthusiast said:


> Wow... how does Forbes do it's rankings? My university should not be that low. :shocked:


i'm not sure. cornell is 51st which is totally not right. it's the only list with both liberal arts schools and universities together and it rates my school mad high so i'm happy about it though. also dartmouth is in the 30s which pissed a lot of people off lol


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## MBTI Enthusiast

robknicker said:


> i'm not sure. cornell is 51st which is totally not right. it's the only list with both liberal arts schools and universities together and it rates my school mad high so i'm happy about it though. also dartmouth is in the 30s which pissed a lot of people off lol


Yeah, exactly. Sometimes I wonder if universities pay to be ranked high on lists like this. Maybe the Ivies are paying off US News and World Report. :shocked:


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## robknicker

MBTI Enthusiast said:


> Yeah, exactly. Sometimes I wonder if universities pay to be ranked high on lists like this. Maybe the Ivies are paying off US News and World Report. :shocked:


i think a big part of it is acceptance rate. since the ivies are so famous, a lot of people apply and don't get in haha. there are also a lot of state schools esp. in larger states where that's true, like ucla and uc berkely and suny binghamton. in our 5 school consortium, the next-best-school was fudging their SAT numbers by 10 points. they're mad good in a dif way though, for business and economics and high-paying-finance-jobs lol


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## MBTI Enthusiast

robknicker said:


> i think a big part of it is acceptance rate. since the ivies are so famous, a lot of people apply and don't get in haha. there are also a lot of state schools esp. in larger states where that's true, like ucla and uc berkely and suny binghamton. in our 5 school consortium, the next-best-school was fudging their SAT numbers by 10 points. they're mad good in a dif way though, for business and economics and high-paying-finance-jobs lol


Oh wow.

Yeah that's true. I think sometimes they also factor in "value" and since the Ivies are notoriously expensive, that might hinder them. Except Princeton is #1. :laughing: I guess these hypotheses are flawed somehow. :tongue:


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## Joseph

I took mostly APs, college classes at the end of my high school career. I did well in high school, and do well in university. Enough for merit scholarships to a top 50 uni. I feel like socioeconomic status, and upbringing has more to do with school success than intelligence though.


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## staticmud

I was put into the Gifted and Talented program as a child and I was in honors and AP classes throughout high school. I usually had grades in the high eighties with some in the nineties (the coursework was pretty easy, but I was disinterested). I took an official IQ test and I tested at 136.


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