[colanderman]

I agree re: the kid in TFA; college at 12 is absolutely an outlier.

For my family the problem with gifted & talented programs was money. I did end up taking some courses at the local community college. But e.g. when the opportunity to participate in the Johns Hopkins CTY program came up, my parents couldn't afford it so I did not do so.

(In fact in adulthood I ended up teaching at CTY for three years. It is absolutely a program I would have benefited from as a youth, but very much skewed toward children of wealthy parents. I distinctly remember one session I taught, how much trouble the one public school kid had fitting in. The kid who flew in on a private jet found more in common with his classmates.)