My school system was a mess when it came to their gifted and talented (GAT) program. In my case, I was identified as a candidate, subjected to an absolutely ins

My school system was a mess when it came to their gifted and talented (GAT) program. In my case, I was identified as a candidate, subjected to an absolutely insane battery of cognitive, aptitude and other tests, and then pulled from class once a week to go to another school with other GAT kids. Once there I was put into a room and basically told to go do smart things with no other primer, driver, or material to work with. My own personal interests were ignored. I was told I was disappointing my sponsor teacher by my lack of output, with no particular set of expectations on what, exactly, I was supposed to be doing. After a year of this I asked to be excused from the program and spent the next year in not a "normal" class, but a remedial class because the school had sacrificed their non-GAT classes to create academic space for the GAT kids. So basically you were either doing some kind of advanced literature analysis or you were being tested on how to spell such challenging words as "ball" and "dog". There were other elements of the GAT program that were similarly discouraging. I couldn't get out of school fast enough and it was such a damaging experience that I didn't go back to university until years later.