While the ED advantage isn’t as great as it seems at first blush because of the athletes, legacies, etc., the CCs I know strongly encourage the kids they work with to use these early options because they do provide an advantage. At the very least, they signal true interest in attending. But I think they also have a bit of a first mover advantage – if they wanted a tuba player and they get one ED, they don’t need to fill that bucket RD. Often, when schools talk about ED not providing an advantage, they are saying that they don’t compromise on stats in this round.
So if a student has a first choice, this is a good option. Tufts seems to be an outlier, vibe-wise, on this list. But OP says they know that and are fine with it.
I’d probably do ED1 at my true first choice. There is also ED2 at some, so that’sa second chance if ED1 doesn’t work. Slightly different pool, but worth a shot. I don’t think a student in the top 5%of the class is throwing away an application at Vandy or Tufts, but I do think it’s a bit of a roll of the dice. (Btw, the colleges don’t care about weighted GPA, just unweighted.) But it’ll be your best roll. Not needing FA will help.
The TO question is trickier. A 33 is a good score BUT it may be lower than what has been getting submitted. I’d probably submit but I know that the CCs I know have talked about the decisions around submitting scores in this range and sometimes opt against.
How many of those APs does she have scores from, and are they 5s? I wonder if showing 6 AP scores of 5 and not submitting the ACT might be better, at least at Vandy and Tufts.
One other possibility- and one that pretty much goes against the grain for me – is to do some prep for the ACT and try again.
A last thought – make sure your D really combs through those websites and makes sure she puts together an application that highlights how what she brings is what the school is looking for.