If I had to do it all over again, I would not have made D take such a tough schedule senior year. It it didn’t make a difference in where she got in to school. And it was very stressful trying to fit all those classes in in addition to auditions, shows, and other extracurricular activities. She did not get to take Music Theory or piano because of it and they would have benefited her much more for what she is doing now. None of her schools used a weighted GPA for admission or scholarship decisions. So it really didn’t matter if she took AP or not. But it was far more stressful. Given what you are saying about her not being strong in math and science, I would opt to not take them and do music theory and piano. For most schools you will be fine. If you are considering some of the stronger academic schools like Michigan, NYU, Northwestern, Penn State, Elon and some others, I would check with their admissions department to make sure how it might effect her application before making that decision. But I would say it would be better to have good grades in less stressful subjects than bad grades n subjects she is not good at.
If we could go back in time, I would not have let D take Physics her senior year. She insisted on getting an “Advanced with Honors” diploma (her non-MT friends were the smart kids!). She was only taking 1 AP senior year - English, which she is very strong in, and loves, but needed a 4th upper level science. Huge mistake. VERY difficult course at her HS, and it caused a lot of unnecessary stress in our house (as well as a lot of money to tutors!). Take as easy a load as you can - of course depending on GPA prior to senior year/schools you are applying to.
Unless you are looking at Northwestern ( or same caliber academic school), I would say concentrate your AP / advanced academic courses in your strong subjects. The application / audition process takes way too much time and effort to struggle in advanced courses that would be difficult under the best circumstances. My D is still complaining about AP Stat! We heard many times that while schools wanted to see that you were being challenged, the most weight is given to unweighted GPA. If you are looking at conservatory type training, the academic requirements tend to be less intense, and more talent based.
My D had 3 AP’s her junior year and had scheduled 3 for her senior year. She came to us about a week into school and asked if she could drop AP Stats. After much debate and gnashing of teeth on our part, we saw that her rationale was strong and she had really thought it through, so we agrees. I am glad we did because she was a much happier and healthier human being this year - and I can’t imagine the added stress that Stats would have caused, being that she missed a good number of days to auditions. All her friends that stuck it out have complained a lot about the workload, so it worked out for her to lighten her load.
Without any AP math or AP science, my D was academically accepted to every school that she applied to, including some reasonably tough schools for academic admission (TCU, Elon, Illinois Wesleyan, Penn State, Indiana). She received large merit scholarships to every school including many Presidential Scholarships (Junior year stats: 3.7/4.2 GPA and 30 ACT, 3 AP 5’s, AP Scholar designation). She did 4 years of math and science but no Precalculus (and certainly no Calculus).
Since she entered high school with 3 credits from Middle School, her senior year was pretty light with only 4 academic courses (AP English Lit, AP Government/Economics, Advanced Quantitative Reasoning [real world math, easier than Stats], and Digital Interactive Multimedia [Powerpoint, Photoshop, Weebly]). It has been awesome this year to not have her stressing out over homework and staying up past midnight almost every night (like Freshman and Sophomore years).
It is nice to have several AP credits to displace Gen Ed classes in college (especially if she makes 4’s and 5’s again next week), but, based on my d’s experience, I would recommend against “pushing the envelope” in math and science as a senior if that is not in your student’s wheelhouse (unless your student wants to go Northwestern). D’s average scholarship amount was more than $10,000 per year.