At my D’s high school, honors classes and AP classes carried the same weight. My D finished 7th in her class. She took 10 APs where the valedictorian took far less (he didn’t want to hurt his GPA). They have since changed this so APs are now weighted higher than honors). The Val ended up attending Duke so it didn’t end up hurting him. This change hurts my younger D in HS now who has learning disabilities and takes no AP and very few honors classes.