All three of my children’s schools didn’t allow AP until the junior year. They offered “honors” advance courses for freshmen and sophomores, while juniors and seniors had the option of AP or attending the college instead of high school classes.
At my daughter’s school, the honors sophomore year classes were so demanding and soul-eating, the year after my daughter took them the school board made a rule to ban students from taking more than 3 honors-level academic classes. Honors-level music courses were still okay.