The opposite happened when I went through high school. AP classes gave you a .75 bonus to your GPA, Honors classes gave a .5 bonus.
However, many of the AP classes were hard, to the point that the AP exam was laughable. The average grade in AP Biology was a C+, and more than 85% of the class got 5s on the exam. Same thing with calculus, physics, chemistry...
The valedictorian took AP Psychology, Statistics, Environmental Science, and US History, and then went down to the easiest Honors classes he could take. Just a .25 penalty on his GPA bonus... but he was getting 100s in the classes.
The kids who were looking for the hard classes to learn had much lower GPAs.
However, many of the AP classes were hard, to the point that the AP exam was laughable. The average grade in AP Biology was a C+, and more than 85% of the class got 5s on the exam. Same thing with calculus, physics, chemistry...
The valedictorian took AP Psychology, Statistics, Environmental Science, and US History, and then went down to the easiest Honors classes he could take. Just a .25 penalty on his GPA bonus... but he was getting 100s in the classes.
The kids who were looking for the hard classes to learn had much lower GPAs.