I don't know if I'm gifted (I score 125 at some IQ test on abstraction when applying at a company, but still IQ is not always a correct to measure intelligence, so take this with a grain of salt), but my psychiatrist tells me I'm intelligent (he might say this to agree with me, maybe he doesn't think so and it's for another goal).
Yet I'm unemployed, 30 year old, and can't manage to get hired or to do work that is given to me. I don't want to tell people I'm just a special snowflake or something of that matter (since many people easily come down on you for it when they can), but I always hated school because I felt it was formatting me, and not stimulating me. I recently went into some school program for web programming, I hated it and failed it, yet I was considered to know things already.
I'm a little tired of people telling me it's a personality problem, to be frank.
In my view, school is not meritocratic, because its aim is to be efficient and teach important basics to the most people, which politically is a good thing. But is it for everyone? No, and people who are intelligent and care about what the learn actually have more chances to fail, simply because learning program are tailored to be taught easily.
I remember meeting a jury for some project at this school program, and they were pretty judgmental towards my behavior or my opinions when they were asking me specific questions about me.
I think Good Will Hunting precisely describes this problem. Society doesn't know how to pull people up according to their capabilities, because not everything is known about psychology, but also because society often tends to perpetuates its error because of social models which are built on belief.
I think there is no real opportunities for people who might have better capabilities than other. Maybe it should be treated as a handicap or special need, but it's true that politically it's hard to explain such thing when there already is a debate about inequality.