In my case GATE classes weren't social suicide so much as just more homework. Didn't realize that for a while though, when a friend of mine who wasn't in GATE confessed her history syllabus charted her class studying China... and that was it. Our class was doing China, Russia, most of Europe, and then swinging around to South America if we could. I got pretty pissed.
By the end, I was in a high school based around doing projects where I just did whatever I wanted. One of my projects was literally writing a thesis on Lewis Carroll, and another was simply reading a pile of books and telling my teacher what I thought (verbally). We had to get internships, and that's how I became the assistant internet director of a major gubernatorial campaign (which failed) at the age of 16. After that, I didn't get another internship. Who cared. I graduated with a 4.0, valedictorian, and my speech was about how the school was bullshit even though it was trying so hard not to be. Colleges loved me when I applied, but LIFE HAD OTHER PLANS