At my school, when you're a junior or a senior, they are literally no alternatives to taking an AP/IB class. To stay in IB, you need to maintain a ~4.6-4.8(Not quite sure) GPA to remain in the program. Meaning, you must take an AP or IB course. IB courses are even sometimes harder than AP courses, and they both count for college credit. I'm only going to be a sophmore next year, and two of my AP courses are literally required. We only have a choice for one elective, and thats it. If we don't take an AP/IB(IB courses are weighted 5.0 also), for our first elective, our GPA would be to low to stay in the program. If anything, I would advise you to take the AP courses you actually like, and for the ones that you probably might need to take to impress your colleges(Art History for example), just take the AP Exam. Also, in our school, no matter what your grade is, if you get a 5 on the AP Exam, you automatically get an A in the class. Some classes I would just advise you to stay away from. AP Statistics for example. Statistics to math is what a quadraplegic homosexual midget is to a human.
God I hate Statistics.
Seriously.