I think Notre Dame is not alone with abandoning AP credit. I remembered that a few years ago, Dartmouth made the same decision. Here’s a couple of articles on this very topic: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/18/dartmouth-end-use-advanced-placement-scores-credit
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/18/education/dartmouth-stops-credits-for-excelling-on-ap-test.html
http://www.marketplace.org/2013/02/20/education/more-colleges-stop-giving-credit-ap-exams
The condensed version, for those who don’t want to wade through all of those articles is that Dartmouth gave their own final psych exam to students who had received fives on their AP exam and ninety percent of them failed the test. Which essentially lead the researchers to conclude that ““There’s a strong feeling that the high school courses, while valuable – and there was no sense that these were not good courses – but they were not the same as a Dartmouth credit,” said Registrar Meredith Braz(IHE)” and also:“We want a Dartmouth education to take place at Dartmouth,” says school spokesman Justin Anderson (Marketplace).
But:“Even if some top schools aren’t giving college credit, AP tests look good on high school transcripts. So they may not let students get out of freshman year, but they’ll help them get into college in the first place. (Marketplace)”
As students take more and more APs, it is clear that getting credit for say, TEN classes, and being an academic sophomore is not really the same taking those classes in a college setting. I think selective colleges will still like to see students challenging themselves with AP classes for admission, and that won’t change. I also think a student who has skills in a subject will be able to PLACE out of courses, just not get CREDIT for them. But that colleges like Notre Dame believe that freshmen, who by and large haven’t set in stone their major, benefit from taking core classes in a variety of subjects. Especially, since there is a greater variety and depth of subjects at colleges like Notre Dame. And as in an example from the NDsmcobserver article posted above by @CuriousDad2021, a mechanical engineering major who had tested out of English WOULD benefit from a college writing class taught in a college. Writing is a skill most jobs need, and need a proficiency in. I think the point of taking away AP credits is to make sure Notre Dame is providing a liberal arts eduction to the students.