Personally, I advised by children to focus on Dual Enrollment Courses as opposed to AP Courses. In this regard, I happen to agree with your family member. I think you are just finishing up your Freshman Year at a High School in Virginia. As an example, the University of Virginia will only accept 4s or 5s on your AP Exams, while they will accept pretty much a grade of C and above for your Dual Enrollment Courses. In Virginia, are your Dual Enrollment Classes Tuition/Fees/Books, are paid for by the State/Local School Board? If yes, this is one way of reducing your overall college cost if you can accumulate as much DE credit as possible. Technically, you could enter a University with as much as 60 DE Credits as a Junior and finish your 4-year university within two years and possibly start your graduate degree much earlier than your peers. I would suggest you take your DE Courses on site at a local Community College or 4-year College close to your home and try to avoid those courses which satisfy High School Requirements (if possible). Some University doesn’t care if your DE courses satisfy HS Requirements or taken on site, but some do.
I prefer DE Courses over AP for the reasons discussed above. Less risky as far as get 4s or 5s on the AP Exam and the student “potentially” getting their first two years of College free of cost. In some states, you can do your Junior and Senior years at a “Specialized” (very Competitive) High School, co-located at a Local University/Community College. For example:
http://www.mdc.edu/main/sas/alumni/testimonials2014.aspx (some of their graduates)
You can also do both AP and DE courses by avoid any overlap in courses, or just take the AP Exam after taking the AP Courses (duplicated effort though).