I went to an elite public high school in suburban NY. I took all the AP classes I could. I graduated from college and medical school with honors, and I’ve done OK for the past 40 years.
The three most valuable classes I took in HS were wood shop, metal shop, and electrical shop.
Of course, they don’t offer those any more.
Auto and wood shop were two of the most useful classes I took in typical public school.
I was in some kind of gifted learning program that involved a lot writing essays and not much else. It was pretty useless.