<p>“Would a certain score on the AP exams settle the uncertainty of level of difficulty of the classes in HS?”
-No. But most colleges give different credits depending on AP exam grade. D. had to take one semester of English because she had only “4”. If she had a “5”, she did not have to take any. AP exams are not P/F. The best is to not calculate too closely. Do whatever you feel at the time. Sometime it just makes sense. For example, why not take AP exam, if they take SAT II in this subject already? Might as well. Different colleges on a kid list might treat the credit differently. And again, some programs require them to stay in UG for 4 years no matter what. My point is that taking AP exam is not as important as it might look now. Again, if you go for science oriented major, it makes whole lot of sense to get as much credits as possible for English, History, any humanity, Math. Then you can place in higher math (mostly determined by placement test score), possibly higher Chem (as it was in my D’s case). Also, strongly recommend to take as much Foreign language in HS as possible, AP or not is not that relelvant. Many colleges determine level based on placement test. The higher levels of Foreign language are much more worthwhile to take.</p>