<p>You wouldn't shave of 3.5 years...
Although you would get 3/4 of the credits required to graduated, only about 1/4 or maybe 1/3 would actually get you somewhere. The main benefit of taking APs is that it takes care of the initial freshman prerequisites, but you still have to take the advanced classes. Plus, many universities have policies where you have to take 50% of the courses at that college to get a degree from there. At best, I think the APs would shave of 2 years to graduation at a state university (which still rocks :P). Take a look at the AP policies and course catalog/program requirements of the state university you might go to for specific details.</p>
<p>Also, why go for the State Scholar award? You'll get it after you graduate... so the only way it would help is if you transferred, and it would still only be an extra line you could add onto the awards section. It wouldn't help your transcript if you were to transfer, because APs don't affect your college GPA. If you got into MIT/other top choice school right away, it would be fairly useless because you wouldn't need that for anything. I self studied a bunch last year and got National AP Scholar and I can actually put that on applications.</p>