AP's versus our curriculum

Interesting issue has come up recently in school. Found out that colleges check out the scores our students get on their AP portfolio and compare them to the grades we give them in our classes. For instance, if the average score of our students in AP 3D design is a 4.2 and I happen to give them a B- average for my AP Ceramics class, then my ceramics program would be valued at a much higher rate than if my students averaged a 2.8 on the AP and I gave them an A- (my course would effectively be considered a joke...and probably for good reason)

So, the implications for this seem to be:

1. Discourage kids who we know will do poorly (and even average) on the AP from submitting their portfolio. Only 4's and 5's should take it.

The big issue is we don't know what grade a kid will get. My best student in 15 years of teaching received a 4, while one of my most distracted, unproductive kid received a 3 - both were scores they received were jokes! My grades for them (A and C+) respectively both hurt and helped my program - but not in the way I thought...

2. Lower the grades of my students.

We already have a difficult time as it is attracting students to stay with the visual arts into the upper levels because colleges don't value the class in the same way they do other courses of study. If we were to lower their GPA's artificially, we would lose them altogether...