@CaucAsianDad, I think you misunderstood my point in #1.
- AP classes certainly have a prominent role in a rigorous high school curriculum for most students. The are more common than IB or DE offerings. Whether they are more rigorous depends on the individual school and setting. All students who are applying to competitive or selective colleges should plan to challenge themselves academically through their curriculum, and if AP classes are offered, I would expect to see this as the most common route.
- That said, there is plenty of "cramming" that goes on. In some schools, AP courses are not necessarily the most rigorous, but people take them anyway to pad their weighted GPA or make their transcript look superficially more impressive. People check off the number of AP courses and exams they have taken, and sometimes try to squeeze more and more courses in for the sake of appearances, even at the expense of their overall academic experience. The second link in post #5 above is one such example, and it's not an uncommon one. There are schools at which 8 APs are "normal", and where some people feel compelled to take double that number in an attempt to stand out. I would argue that such effort is mis-placed.
- "Being in an IB program is not the same as taking AP classes". From an adcom's perspective, it is similar rigor. IBD is a demanding and rigorous curriculum, and attempting to throw in a bunch of AP classes or tests on top of it doesn't necessarily work well. It certainly won't do much for admissions purposes, because being in an IBD program by itself is sufficient to show curricular rigor. As several posters have mentioned, there may be specific cases where taking an AP test makes sense on top of IB, but usually not for admission purposes. The major exception I can think of is taking a second or third science, since IBD generally limits the number of science subjects which are included.
I was NOT advocating in #1 that talented HS students do not take AP classes that are available. That would be ridiculous, and harmful to their competitive status as applicants. But I think a lot of kids go way overboard.