Depends on the art school and the program!
I was accepted and attended Laguna College of Art and Design's animation program for one year and was recently accepted into Art Center's animation program with the intent to transfer starting this fall. In both of my portfolios for these programs, my portfolio was predominantly cartoony/illustrated pieces. Here is my LCAD accepted portfolio with an 8k per year scholarship which turned into a half-ride scholarship (2014) and here is my recent Art Center accepted portfolio (not including my animation reel video)--scholarship still pending on AC, pray for me haha!
As you can see, even my figure drawings are really heavily stylized, and take up less than 25% of my portfolio in both cases. Both LCAD and AC were predominantly interested in your sense of artistic vision and potential---artistic foundations can be taught to anyone who will sit down and learn them, but being able to interpret the world around you and craft illustrations/stories/characters in unique and appealing ways is at least partially something innate.
Even CalArts, the most high-demand animation school in the nation, tends to prefer extremely hyperstylized figure drawings and gestures. CalArts of all animation programs I've seen requires the most life-drawing work, but when I attended a portfolio review with my sketchbook, the CalArts representative told me that the sketchbook portion of the portfolio (which is apparently the most important aspect of the portfolio being accepted) should emphasize vision and creativity above all else. Take a look at accepted CalArts sketchbooks and portfolios--you'll see what I mean!
Now because I'm an animation major, I'm speaking obviously predominantly of what's expected from an animation program's portfolio. I'm also speaking from the PoV of the more top-end/desirable animation schools--smaller schools or universities may be more interested in the semi-realism and realism aspect. Illustration programs, fine arts programs, etc. will DEFINITELY be more interested in the realism/semi-realism stuff. The reason I'm bringing up these examples though is because OP seems to be heading in a more cartoon-y style, which leads me to believe they are interested either in animation, comics or entertainment design in general in their future (correct me if I'm wrong), so I wanted to point this out from my firsthand experience. No disrespect intended!