What's better, Dual Credit or AP?

My school doesn’t offer very many AP courses, but I do live in the same town as a small public university that offers many dual credit courses to us high school students. What many kids do, is they’ll take the Dual Credit course, and then take the AP test at the end of the year. How will this look to admissions officers? I don’t want them to think that my senior year i’m going to be slacking off, when I’m actually taking 15 credit hours. Should I switch to AP?

What those kids do sounds like a good plan, actually.

Do dual enrollment. Most colleges, especially ones that have transfer agreements will let you transfer credits more easily.

Let’s just say a 5 on ap environmental science is nice, but an actual course that will transfer to your degree like gen chem or english is easier to get credit for.

Also great idea to cover both bases with ap exam.

Make sure the DE classes are replacements for core AP, not just random classes. If your hs encourages the AP tests after the DE, yes, take the test.