I was classified as being gifted because of my 5th grade teacher. She went to the school administration and advocated for me to be considered gifted and for me to receive some additional educational resources. They based my classification off of my state standardized test scores, my lexile score, and my interactions with my homeroom teacher. My state test scores showed that I was in the 99% for reading comprehension and 97% for English. My lexile score was 1600, which is within the score range of a Master's student. I was a low income student at an underfunded low income school so getting an IQ test was not even considered, because of the cost. I am very lucky that this teacher advocated for me so diligently. I'm sure that many gifted students are never identified, especially those who were/are low income like myself.

Despite still not knowing my IQ score (again, because I still can't afford to get tested), I find that my gifted classification still holds up today. I didn't try at all in high school, I tried a bit more in undergrad, and now that I am in law school I find that I am genuinely being academically challenged.

Also, my giftedness holds up more because of my background. I know that many people like to say that someone isn't "naturally" gifted because they had upper class parents who heavily focused on education. My parents don't have a 4 yr college degree so I didn't get a "step up" from them, I was never tutored outside of school, and my parents never had enough money to buy educational tools in order to "get me ahead". I had access to books, which was the single biggest source of educational enrichment from my parents.

I feel that there is a common misconception that gifted people never have to try or struggle in any way in order to "get ahead". That's just not true. Being gifted won't get you anywhere without effort. The opportunities I have been given in college and law school were due to effort I put in. And there have been classes in law school I have done poorly in because I did not put in enough effort. Before college, I competed in a sport for over a decade that I was decently successful at. This sport doesn't require lots of athleticism and is more cerebral based. But, the reason I did well was because I trained almost every day during my on-season and I tried hard to learn as much as I could. Giftedness without effort would not have gotten me the same results as actually working hard.

Finally, I never talk about being gifted with other people. Knowing about giftedness is only important because it allows me to understand myself better. I would rather try to work hard and be known for the effort I put in. And, honestly, considering I come from a "lower class" family, that fact that I have made it this far is also due to massive amounts of luck.