My son’s AP credits certainly satisfied the school’s requirements for FL at a certain level or demonstrated adequate knowledge of calculus for someone who wasn’t going to pursue a STEM degree, but he felt there was a lot of additional info, and some additional methods, in his intro classes in economics than he’d seen in his AP courses (and he’d had 5s on those tests.)
I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a school to allow a kid to exempt out of FL for a 4 on the Spanish AP exam, especially if the student had no interest in additional language study AND at the same time recommend that a student who was planning to pursue higher level studies in Spanish that they repeat Spanish 4 to solidify certain skills that would be necessary for higher level classes. This is not so different from requiring completion of a prerequisite with a grade of x or higher to go yo the next level. Without the threshold, you passed the class. But not well enough to go higher.
I think it depends on where you want to go with the subject as well as the school.
I can’t begin to count the number of engineering students who recall the worst experience of their academic career was opting for the “higher” math class as a result of AP exams, DE credit, etc.