This was also my experience in the early 90s, which was frustrating (at the time) because in the 1980s admission was based on IQ tests and in those programs we

This was also my experience in the early 90s, which was frustrating (at the time) because in the 1980s admission was based on IQ tests and in those programs we did a lot of cool things! (computer programming, robotics, rockets, chemistry, biology etc. etc.) High-achieving students could skip grades if they wanted to, but the program itself wasn't just doing more of the same, and I valued that.