High schools provide a profile to the colleges. The profile gives enough information that the colleges get a good idea of the rigor of courses.
The profile might include the courses offered, grading system, GPA/class rank correlation, average SAT scores broken down by GPA range, colleges attended by the prior graduating class by GPA range, etc.
Looking at a past profile for our district, the 40 kids in the top 12% GPA had an average SAT score of 2086. The bottom 20% had an average SAT score of 1484. 91% of students that took AP tests scored 3 or higher.
From that information you can draw some conclusions regarding the rigor of AP/Honors courses at the school. I think most colleges have an idea of the rigor of certain high schools if they get multiple applicants from the HS each year.
Actually, test scores may or may not reflect the rigor of the courses. What those scores could also be reflecting is the distribution in the intelligence of the students and/or outside tutoring. The 91% scoring a 3 or better on the AP exams has more likelihood of being due to educational quality, but it could also be due to intelligent, motivated students self teaching or getting outside help.
I'm not against requiring students to provide test scores, but *all* students should be subjected to the same requirements as you can't tell from a course name and a grade on a transcript anything about how rigorous the course was.
