At quite a few engineering schools where my daughter applied, students were told to think long and hard about placing out of fundamental courses like Physics, Calculus, and Chemistry.
Much as CB would like you to believe that a HS AP course is “just like a college course”, I can assure you that your typical high school AP Physics C course bears a pale resemblance to MIT/Purdue/GT/etc. Freshman Physics.
Many students took the class as a Freshman and no one considered them “grade grubbers”.