@MWolf People not planning to be engineers or natural silence majors might take AP Physics for a variety of reasons. The AP credit could fulfill a general ed requirement for college, it would show schedule rigor to name but two reasons. It may not be usual but my D happened to find physics the easiest of the sciences – it just fit her thought process better than bio or chem.
FWIW my D graduated with a BS in psychology and that degree required a minimum of 5 hard science classes (a BA degree was also available at her college without that degree of science coursework). In college she took 2 chemistry, 2 physics, 1 bio, and one anatomy/physiology as a psychology major. She felt her science coursework was invaluable in grad school studying speech pathology.