APs are impacted because there is too much demand, given the crowd, mostly kids of highly educated Silicon Valley professionals who have high aspirations for their kids lol and we have major budget issues in california so not enough sections are available.
Not all the kids should be doing tons of APs so the school has also made it more difficult and (for fairness) some APs are reserved for kids who are only taking a couple of APs.
DS wanted AP physics. They gave them lottery tickets to determine who would get in! He couldn’t even get into the huge auditorium/classroom to get a ticket as it was overflowing! So they gave them another chance but he decided to do it online on his own time. He prefers self study, though, and this way he could take both physics C courses.
My DD would NEVER have done this
And yeah, he is totally self driven, except when it came to actually applying for the darn colleges. It was a nightmare with many close calls, but it’s done!
Most people around here hire counselors to avoid these situations.