@gkalman Yep, that is a total mystery to me too.
My D will have a total of 8 APs by the time she graduates: US History, English, Calculus, Statistic, Physic1, Physic2, Chemistry, and Government. She took all honors in 9th and 10 grades b/c they didn’t offer AP until 11th grade. She wanted to do 5 APs each in Junior and Senior year but her GC recommended against saying that she already has the heaviest AP course work at the school (no one else has 8 APs). And that science courses are tough, blah blah blah. Then I come here people has astronomical number of AP courses, 12 – 18 APs, or so it seems.
By the time D applied, and Senior grade is NOT included, she would only have 4 APs (or 8 unit honors per UC scale). The bump she gets for her GPA could only come from the 8 unit honors. How on earth someone would have 18 APs (36 unit honors) by 11th grade??? How is it physically possible? My hubby’s theory is that those students might not actually take the actual courses from their HS, but they learned the material else where and then take the AP exams. That makes sense to me. But then how would it contribute to GPAs if they don’t actually do the courses at the school? AP exams alone can’t count toward GPA…
I think that’s why @gkalman thinks that the 36 unit honors (18 APs) must not only come from APs alone, but also comes from the Honor courses that the students took during their HS years, even for OOS.
But I read somewhere, and confirmed by @10s4life, that Honors are not awarded for OOS students. Hence the mystery.