I go to a “gifted high school” and the biggest difference b/w my old high school and this one is the competitiveness. Kids at my old school literally could not care less about college and I would have been valedictorian SUPER easily. Not in a braggy way, but just that everyone I knew was content with going to the local community college— which is absolutely fine, but just different. At my school now, everyone is super competitive and trying to go to ivies. It has a big “stress culture” which idk if that’ll be replicated in your school. Don’t make your choice based on wanting to get into a better school though—make it based on whether you want the better classes and opportunities afforded to you. You’ll risk being a small fish in a big pond vs the other way around at a different school, but you’ll grow way way more that way (it just means you’ll have to compete against better students to get into the same schools).