From the son’s personal experience, WashU is pretty stringent when it comes to science AP credits. A 5 on AP Chemistry gives you general education credits but students aren’t exempted from General Chemistry 1 and 2. Same with a 5 in Biology-general education credits only.
I personally felt the policy was good in that it introduced students to a different approach to learning the hard sciences. It was definitely an eye opening experience for the kid. He never took AP Chemistry (Honors Chemistry only) and had no preconceived notions about how college chemistry was supposed to be taught. First semester was a B+ and he was proud of the grade because there were a lot of kids dropping/getting bad grades. He adjusted well enough to get an A in second semester Chemistry.
I remember parents on our WashU FB group wanting to complain to the administration. There was a definite amount of schadenfreude on my part.