Yes, AP courses count, as well as well as taking college courses. Both are options for spiking a GPA in California. There are kids applying with 4.9 and 5.0 GPAs. And I maintain it’s bu@&$”!;!.
GPA spiking past 4.0 is dishonest resume padding, and it shouldn’t be allowed.
The only argument for affirmative action for Blacks and Latinos that ever made sense to me had to do with this issue of boosting GPAs by AP courses, etc. I think you can make a rational argument that this unfairly prejudices Blacks and Latinos (and I think you are also arguing white students to an extent) because they are in poorer schools that don’t provide AP courses and don’t have access to other things that you can use to boost your GPA like students from wealthier areas. So, hypothetically, a black kid could be just as smart as an Asian kid and have a 4.0 GPA, but he looks less qualified because he did not have the opportunity to take AP courses.
I know there was talk in the 1990s of a class action being filed on that issue, but I don’t know if it ever was, or if it was, what the outcome of that litigation was.