I’ve been accepted to a nationally acclaimed public high school in my area recently which has been known for its very high test scores and passing rate of AP exams. However, they don’t offer as many computer and engineering related classes that I want to take in order to be ahead in college. The STEM school (the one I currently attend which is a middle/high school) has about 6 courses related to my intended major (Web Design, CAD, Programming, AP Computer Science Principles, and 2 dual enrollment classes for engineering at my local university) while the acclaimed school has only 3 (AP Computer Science Principles, AP Computer Science A, and Information Technology). On the other hand, the acclaimed school offers about 5 more AP class choices compared to my original school.
As a practical matter, high school course work is unlikely to get you ahead in engineering or CS (maybe CS A for CS majors at some colleges). Engineering course work in high school would mainly be for gauging your interest; the college courses available to high school students may or may not transfer to something useful.
Which AP courses are offered at each school?
At each school, how well do A students in AP courses do on AP tests? If they tend to earn 4 or 5, that is better than if they tend to earn 1 or 2.
It is better to be in an academically challenging environment than to have all of those CS classes. You will get to all that in college…the people who do engineering are different that CS are different than CAD, so you geenrally would not take all of those classes anyway.
Take the AP CS classes to get familiar with programming.