They had some fairly decent AP classes at my school that were challenging enough if you took several of them. I remembered thinking the first 11 years of school were a waste, but the last two weren't bad.

I also highly recommend AP courses.

YES.

Don't even worry if your school doesn't offer the class for it. A friend of mine and I did self-study for one AP test, and started about 3-4 weeks before the text. I didn't "ace" it, but I got a high enough score that it got me out of required classes in college.

True, also the definition of "aceing" should be adjusted for the AP exams. I took the Physics C Electricity & Magnetism exam without taking the class, you only need to get something like 65% of it right to get the highest score (which some shockingly small percentage of people even do). That isn't hard at all if you put your mind to it. When I got to college it knocked off a 4 credit class with a 3 hour lab each week. 2 weeks of studying saved me hundreds of hours of work in college.

Awesome advice! Don't worry if your school has an AP class (they are mostly busted). I think you can even take the AP exams multiple times (if you don't do so well the first time).

Don't undervalue this advice. I took a good amount, and knocked off a whole semester at college. If I took and tried in every AP class I took, I would've knocked off even more.

This helped me too, graduating early because of it. Seriously important one.