AP doesn’t help with top schools but it helps with GPA, she is also competing for school valedictorian.
If she’s going to study anything science-related, she needs a year of physics, and if she has to take one AP out of her schedule to do it – and that means she cannot be valedictorian – it’s worth it. Without a background in high school physics, she would be inadequately prepared for college science classes.
I think this kid needs to stop focusing on trophies and think about what she actually is interested in and wants to accomplish in her life, aside from racking up gold stars. BS/MD is not a consolation prize to go for if you don’t get the gold star of “top 10” prestige. I think her life priorities are a mess and I would be worrying about that, not whether she takes one AP science class or another.
DD will be taking AP Physics 1 and AP Calculus A/B this fall (senior year). We had no choice - our school’s master schedule is a complete disaster, so we were lucky she got the AP classes she did get into. While she isn’t looking at Ivies, Stanford or the ilk, she’s got some highly and semi selective schools on her list. We’ve spoken with two admission counselors at the schools she’s most likely to consider attending as well as a rep for our state flagship. All three said the same thing - as long as she gets the classes in, she’s in good shape. (Intention at the time was chemistry major/business minor with a plan to go into IP law. Now she wants to go just straight business major with a pre-law intent - AP Chemistry broke her, she says! 
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Also agree with Maythone about the need to focus on what she’s interested in - trophies are awesome, being happy and majoring in something you enjoy at a school that’s a great fit is way more important.)