She "hangs" with all of them and winds up in about the top 10% of whatever class she's in. However, many of her high school teachers have expressed open delight to me that they've "been waiting for years" to have her in particular in their class, or that "they always hoped that they'd have the chance to work with a student so gifted" as teachers...
So clearly she is something different even from her peers in that setting, though she doesn't see herself as being exceptional. She is quite willing to label pretty much anyone older than herself in comparative and favorable terms-- often just taking their words for their competence, in all honesty. If a 17yo friend-of-a-friend tells her that they are a science geek and flash a little of what they (think) they know, well, she's happy to report that the person is "way smarter than I am." In other words, at 13, she hasn't yet figured out that saying you're a budding Einstein isn't the same as being one; a lot of these kids are mostly talk.
We see pretty much the exact same thing with our dd13. In math in particular, she's convinced that she's "bad" at it partially b/c she has friends who are in pre-calc this year and she's not, but again these other teens are 15-16. I recall last year that pretty much all of her teachers were shocked to learn that she was 12 at the start of the year b/c they assumed her to be one of the older students and I've had many teachers over the years tell me that she's one of the most gifted kids they've ever taught.
I see her willingness to view herself as "typical" gifted/bright as both a benefit and a drawback of grade acceleration. On the benefit end of things, she at least doesn't have a big head. In 4th grade, her GT reading class had an end of year poetry reading in which they read their own poetry and a dedication they had written. No fewer than two students had dedications that started with something like, "there is this girl in my class, [dd], who inspired me..." and, one of the moms, when she heard that dd was my child, went on and on about how she's heard some of her poetry and was amazed by what she could write. 6th grade the next year was much better in terms of her not being hero-worshiped.
The draw-back, as we've both seen, is that the child compares herself to what she views as her peers (high ability much older kids) and doesn't realize how special she is even in her weaker areas. I always remember what dd's 3rd grade teacher said to me, [dd's] "weak areas are other people's strong areas." (i.e. if other people's strongest suits were things that were interpersonal weaknesses for dd, they'd be really good at that area.)
