Not all AP subjects are created equal, either. I had the privilege of attending a Fancy Private School(tm) which offered the full gamut of AP courses, and took

Not all AP subjects are created equal, either. I had the privilege of attending a Fancy Private School(tm) which offered the full gamut of AP courses, and took advantage of a handful: English, Biology, Chemistry, French Literature, Calculus. Of all these subjects, the French Literature (not to be confused with the langauge AP) was an order of magnitude harder. At my school, only students who stayed in the AP track from freshman year onwards were able to take the "AP" class, effectively making the AP requirement 4 years long. It was purely necessary: by 9th grade you know a little French, but the intensive vocabulary building, then reading simple books (The Little Prince), then graduating to proper literature and poetry -- it takes time to build up to that level. The program was hard but well worth it: the entire AP class (9 in total, starting from 30) came away with 4s and 5s. NYU later gave me something like three semester-class' worth of credits for that one AP. I think the monetary value for that is something like $10,000. Not too shabby. I had some friends who took the Music Theory AP and reported a similarly difficult experience.