That reminds me of another difference that I have noticed. In my day, you needed 20 credits to graduate. Most normal students taking a standard load would have 24 credits. GT students would automatically have more due to high school credits from middle school. At our local high school, which has alternate day schedule, the standard load would result in 32 credits although you still only need 20 credits to graduate even if there are about that many in total required courses alone. So in answer to Ben leis, I am not sure that you are giving up anything since there is room for more courses.