I was never in a “Gifted and Talented” program. In fact, I was never whisked away from my classmates and placed in any kind of accelerated program without deliberately having to seek it out first (e.g. choosing to take AP classes). I was never submitted for IQ tests or told I must be some kind of genius. Yet when I encounter virtually any account of “gifted kid burnout” online, I can’t help but notice how accurately it describes my own experience.
Gifted kid burnout, or “gifted kid syndrome,” is not a new term. It’s been coined and redefined over and over again in various media from TikToks to college news articles, cemented into our cultural lexicon, but always seems to carry an air of levity. Indeed, it likely originated as a label to make light of a rather upsetting phenomenon: the perceived “fall from grace” when a child labeled as extraordinarily intelligent or talented does not live up to the lofty expectations placed upon them by their family, teachers, peers, and often themselves.
Gifted kid burnout could be framed as the dark side of perfectionism; after all, holding oneself to exceedingly high standards makes failure all the more probable. Furthermore, many children who grew up under the burden of the “gifted” label are likely to define themselves by their exceptional intelligence or talent. This makes the pain of receiving a bad grade or otherwise subverting the “smart kid” ideal feel intensely personal. For a former gifted kid, the experience of losing their “gifted” identity could send them into mental turmoil, especially because this often happens during the formative years of one’s life.
My gifted kid burnout reached its zenith during college admissions season, specifically on Ivy Day, but it had been a long time coming. For years, I had been filling my days with AP classes and extracurriculars instead of the creative hobbies and social time that actually brought me joy, years of doing hours of homework every night at the expense of my sleep. And what did I have at the end of it all? A handful of rejections from my dream schools, schools that people all around me at my high school had gotten into. I internalized these rejections as something my maladaptive perfectionism could latch onto and claim as tangible evidence of my inferiority.
Logically, I knew that admissions are a lottery; most applications are only reviewed for a few minutes and decisions are arbitrary beyond a certain grade cutoff. That didn’t stop me from spiraling about my rejections for days on end. I lost all motivation to do work because it felt like nothing I did mattered anymore. I also lost confidence in my abilities in many of my more challenging classes, like Calculus and Physics C. Until that point, I had overestimated my chances of successfully breaking into the top schools in the nation because I had been excessively praised for challenging myself inside and outside of the classroom. That meant I had even further to fall and the pain of rejection was infinitely sharper than it would have been otherwise. My unrealistic expectations came crashing down around me all at once, and for a while, I didn’t know who I was without academic validation.
I was incredibly grateful when I eventually got my Smith acceptance, and I’m happy to say that the relative lack of name recognition (when compared to the Ivies) doesn’t bother me one bit. I don’t envy my Ivy Leaguer friends navigating overly competitive academic environments packed with nepotism babies whose parents could afford to donate buildings. In many ways, my gifted kid burnout liberated me. Detaching my self-worth from my classes, grades and extracurriculars is an ongoing process, but I’m so glad I started it before coming to Smith. I am now surrounded by former “gifted kids,” class presidents and AP students. In an environment like this, where everyone is academically competent and has interesting and impressive extracurriculars, one is forced to distinguish themself in other ways. We should focus on kindness, humor and creativity; all the things that actually make us who we are and bring us intrinsic joy and fulfillment. Even those who were never explicitly deemed “gifted”, like me, could actually stand to benefit from abandoning their academic superiority complex. Burnout is painful, but the aftermath allows for a surprising amount of self-discovery.
