I dunno, for me it wasn't the worst. School was overall much nicer than a job - less demanding, less workload, much more fun coworkers, a ton of camraderie ("us against teachers"). Basically a fun, low-stakes environment.
I played football. I wasn't getting invited to big parties, but nobody bugged me. Even guys who were never good enough to be first string as seniors - they were part of the team. But that might just have been my school. It was pretty good about letting the drama kids be drama kids, the nerds be nerds, etc. People generally found their niche. Maybe it wasn't the one they wished they could have, but it was a place where you were accepted, and they mostly left each other alone.
If you had purely intellectual interests, or physical issues in general you quite likely would not have had the same experience.
It's not about niche finding so much as it's about social blending and masking.
The most "pure intellectual" people in my class ended up editing the school paper and being in student government. They might have been made fun of, especially behind their backs, but nobody ever really tore them up.
Like I said, it was a place where you could find your niche and live in it. Not perfect, and if you wanted to have a conflict, you could. But mostly, that didn't happen.