If you mean "decide" as in force them to take it, then yes I would be surprised. In my experience, even the high achieving parents didn't force them to take specific classes. They put pressure on their kids (both genders equally, tiger mom does not care about gender roles) to take STEM AP classes in general instead of specific ones. Those students decide which STEM AP classes to take (except for Calc which parents stressed more).

This was before knowledge of comp sci salaries have gone mainstream (before 2012), although it's still a relevant, anecdotal reflection on the backgrounds of current software engineers.

My AP comp sci class was actually composed of non-high achieving people. AP comp sci was the only AP class many of the students took. The high achieving students didn't take AP comp sci for whatever reason.

I think AP comp sci was actually considered lower status/prestige compared to the sciences Physics/Chem/Bio among the high achieving students.