> AP CS is the epitome of a "Java School" course.

As a high school student who took AP CS last year, I agree, but in reality the course isn't even about Java. Code is written by hand on the free response portion and Java syntax is mentioned but not really emphasized (things like missing brackets and semicolons are okay on the FRQs). I finished all the questions in about 25 minutes, with over an hour left to twiddle my thumbs.

Even questions about algorithmic analysis (in APCS's case, just sorting algorithms) are done without proper big-O notations, which is just plain stupid IMO.

For a student that has done CS on their own for years now, APCS feels like the fake, industrialized, watered-down version.