Colleges examine your academic record very closely. A student who did not perform well in the freshman year of high school may be given the benefit of the doubt if his or her grades went up in sophomore, junior, and senior years. The academic quality of your high school Admissions committees will look at the availability of honors or AP courses, the school's overall academic strength, and the past success of students from the same high school. However, the tests are not the most important element of your application. In fact, some schools do not look at the scores at all.
Students are very worried about standardized tests.
That's probably their biggest fear. We so rarely have the time to take an application and to look for that spectacular young person who needs Smith because it's going to transform them into one of the most important people in the world. Admissions is about trying to eliminate as many people as possible to get to the right size class. Standardized test scores are an easy way to eliminate people. There may be different requirements, such as extra math or science courses.