<p>As homeschoolers, my sons took classes three places: home, the local high school, and the local community college. While the local high school is decent, it tends to emphasize sports more than academics and only has a few AP classes: English Lit, Calculus, and a couple history ones. Each of my sons took one AP class at the high school, along with other classes (math and science for one son, science and music for another). Both took several classes at our excellent community college. Many of these were classes not offered at the high school, such as Japanese and engineering. My second son chose to take Calculus at the community college, because the AP calc course at the high school was equivalent to less than half a year of college calc.</p>
<p>Both of my sons have had these courses accepted for transfer credit (even though admitted as freshmen) by Stanford and Indiana University. They also really enjoyed the variety of students they met in the cc classes and the rigor of the classes. (Calculus and engineering were DEFINITELY challenging!)</p>
<p>My opinion would be that it all depends upon the local situation. In some places AP would be best; in others CC classes would be more appropriate. This is definitely not a "one size fits all" situation.</p>