We don't have our English and Social Studies paired, but I like the idea. For Honors track kids at our school, the typical path for social studies is:
9th - AP Human Geo
10th - APUSH
11th - AP Euro or AP World
12th - AP Gov/AP Econ
In 11th, you can choose Euro vs World and while I wanted my DD to take World, she chose Euro more based on the teacher and I think she made the right choice for her (she loves her teacher and he's a leading contender for college recommender for her now). Her teacher is an AP grader and his course is super challenging (grade-wise), but not overwhelming workload wise. I think it's important to do research and find out what the workload is like at your specific high school for specific APs. We have a relatively small high school without a ton of honors options after 10th grade (basically the options are AP or Regular for Jr/Sr year except for math which has Pre-Calc Honors before you hit APs) so a lot of kids take a lot of APs and the teachers seem to limit the workload in some classes to keep the overall load reasonable. That is not the case across our district - my DD is taking 5 APs (AP Euro, AP Lang, AP Chem, AP Calc BC, and AP French) as a Junior and that would never be possible at a nearby school where some of her friends go. The workload in each individual AP class is overwhelming at that school, so 2-3 would be a full load. However, that school is larger and also has a much higher proportion of honors kids and offers other honors options in Junior/Senior year that aren't AP
Mom to a DD (8/02) and a DS (6/05)