Our local schools weight honors and AP’s. This is clearly spelled out in the information provided by the schools. The student chooses the classes he/she will take. If a student chooses to take more of the weighted classes to maximize GPA or class rank, so what?
D chose to take unweighted classes in drama and journalism. Still ended up in the top 10, but would have taken those classes anyway. If some other student chose to take additional AP classes and had a better class rank, well good for him/her. D could have made that choice too.
I think the idea of accusing a child of “gaming” the system is ridiculous.