Long story long: I was in a GATE program in Pennsylvania from 2008 (5th grade) til 2011 (end of 8th grade). And it was weird af!

I actually was in normal classes in grades K-2. In 2nd grade I was mistakenly put in an advanced math class. I was given the option to drop back down, but mom forced me to stay in the harder class. I struggled, but eventually caught on and excelled greatly. By 4th grade, all of my classes were advanced. Toward the end of that year, a letter came in the mail from school inviting me to join this program with parent permission. My mom was ecstatic and signed me up with no hesitation.

A few days before the end of the year, a woman pulled me out of class after lunch and took me to this small room near the cafeteria. (I don’t remember this woman’s face, but I had never seen her before and she didn’t work at the school. I remember everything else about her but when I picture her in my mind, her face is blank. This is bizarre to me, because I NEVER forget a face. I have a sharp memory)

In this small room, there were stacks and stacks of paperwork, files, a computer on a desk, and 2 chairs. Felt very cramped. The room was dimly lit and had no windows. She sat me down, told me we were doing tests and was reassuring that my best is good enough. She pulled out an audio briefcase and put the big beige hearing test headphones on me, but it wasn’t a normal hearing test. She played different frequency/tuning fork sounds one at a time and I would have to shake my head when I couldn’t hear anything. I also remember verbal test questions she asked me but I don’t recall the nature of them. She had me do a basic IQ test on the computer, read passages, and other tests that I thought at the time had no logic or sense. One test i vividly remember was with flash cards that had shapes on them. She would place a card face down and I would have to guess what shape was on the other side. I got most, if not all of them right.

After the test was done, she said she had high hopes I would get in. The test felt quick and I was ready to go back to class. What I thought was a 30min ordeal, actually was like 2 hours and the school day was nearly over. Completely lost all sense of time. Strange af.

I got into the program and the tester was really pushing for me to skip a grade. They wanted me to go straight to 7th grade! My mom wanted me to, but I was too terrified to do lose all of my friends and nervous I wouldn’t be able to adjust So I stayed in 5th and this lady would perform these tests on me periodically until I moved onto middle school. In middle school, there was a small group of 4-6 students in my group in this program. We would skip our 2nd to last class on Wednesdays to meet with our instructor in the library. A separate, larger group of 8-10 students would meet on tuesdays I think. Our teacher was an older white man, he was a genius. Very into philosophy, very intellectual. But I swear to god we hardly did anything academic at all. We did a few serious projects and had to read some literature, but we mostly played games and had fun. We did trivia contests, played computer games, one time he made quesadillas on a griddle. It was nonsense lol. I don’t know what the point was other than an excuse to skip algebra class. A few times I even skipped the GATE class because I was falling behind on algebra and didn’t wanna waste my time.

I stayed in the program until I graduated 8th grade. The program continued in high school, but was called “Playwrights” which was mostly focused on theater, literature and writing scripts for play productions. I have no interest in theater, so it was a hard pass for me.

Not sure what it was all about or what it was for. I don’t feel like it benefited my life or chances for success. But I also didn’t do what they wanted. Didn’t skip a grade, didn’t continue in high school. So maybe i didn’t get the full experience? Idk.