Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Taking a Gap Year or Dropping Out?

I feel that you have received two replies far more useful than I can give you, but I wanted to respond because you are so clearly suffering so much at the moment and it is a wonderful thing that you are reaching out.

It's incredibly difficult to feel so out of step with the world, so out of place. The advice I give my children, and tell myself when worrying about my children, is that primary school is the worst thing, high school is better, upper highschool is better again. University is better, work is better again. The further you travel through your education and into work, the more you will be with people more like yourself: with similar interests, who actually chose to be here doing this thing. This was true for my husband and I, it has been true for my eldest child (so far), who now supports this sentiment when talking with siblings.

The more different you are, the longer it may be before you find a place/people that is really comfortable. But do not underestimate what a jump it can be just to get out of school and to university, even if it is not the one you had hoped for.

It is incredibly frustrating to feel held back, that you are not being challenged. Starting school can be especially awful for highly gifted children who can't understand why they are so out of step and why they hate school so much. Now that you are older you have more executive function to bring to bear on the situation, you can make your own choices about what to persist with : because it's the path to your personal goals. It is easier for you now as a young adult than as a small child to be aware of your frustration and make active choices to do what must be done for now, while working on getting more advanced options as AEH has suggested you do, always looking forward, one way or another, to real challenges that can only be reached by building a pathway. I am not saying it will be actually easy, but only that you can at least now understand what is happening to you and bring your considerable intellect to bear on your own situation, thus making choices about how to best reach outcomes you can live with, via a process you are willing to put yourself through.

I guess as a completely out there idea, which may be very difficult to achieve in COVID times, you could also consider applying to overseas schools who consider only academic achievement for entry. I am not in the US and I find your college entry system extremely worrying, I am glad my children will not be faced with an arms race of proving their desirability to universities on so many levels.

People complain here that it's so unfair that entry is all about your marks and that is too much pressure for high school students, that unis should consider "the whole student". But I look at what US kids need to do to get into competitive courses or institutions and it is SO much worse because all of a sudden "the whole child" is a zero sum game too, not just their academics... My university age child finished highschool, got their final highschool score (and had studied the appropriate pre-requisite subjects at school) and was accepted accordingly to the course of choice at the university of choice. If they had not gotten a high enough mark, they would not have gotten in, it's as simple as that. No letters about why they wanted to go to that uni, no letters of recommendation from teachers, no extra curricular activities, no charity work that looks good on a resume... They did in fact have multiple extra curricular activities and had done some charity work, but the Uni don't know anything about them other than high school grades, and they don't care.

It's true that socio-economically advantaged children have far more supports in place and so have more chance of the highest marks. But at least there is not the same degree of overt social engineering that US institutions seem to partake in by "curating" their intakes. The more university require things other than academic credentials for entry the harder it is for those with less opportunity to both study and do ECs, charity, start a business and generally promote their "whole person" as worthy of attendance.