“There isn’t necessarily much more work doing the advanced classes as there would be doing the regular ones.”
That’s pretty hard to believe, if so, then the teachers are doing a serious disservice to the students. HS here in the bay are starting to give out time expectations for AP and honors classes when students and parents are figuring out what courses to take. Each AP class take about 1-2 hrs a night, honors 30 minutes to a hour, college-prep about 30 minutes max. You can’t take individual anecdotes and generalize that APs aren’t time sinks, because they are, again to most people.
“I think APUSH is one of the better APs out there - it’s pretty clear to me that the average American has very little knowledge of American history.”
Ok again, APUSH is going to take a lot of time (even if your kid has a Madison-esque understanding of the Constitution), you can get a good idea of American history by taking the regular version, or whatever it’s called in the high school.
"Hoping the selective colleges she is looking at won’t see this as a problem. "
That would depend on the college and rigor that the other applicants showed, or if the adcoms think someone is ducking a hard class and not challenging themselves when they could have.