I disagree, my two oldest had their scores improved a lot more with one on one tutoring, my current senior has been offered $28,000 a year at almost every school she has heard back from, her ACT went up 4 points, her SAT 220. I will definitely be hiring a tutor for dd15 and ds15.
IIRC, the cutoff for FL was around 219 last year. A 32 point jump is a very lofty goal. Doesn’t mean she shouldn’t try, and the tutoring will help with the overall standardized test scores, which will be important. Good luck.
Honestly it’s not a goal. We have Florida prepay and should easily qualify for bright futures. While it would be nice, she doesn’t need to get additional scholarships and we have never even discussed them.
Just to point out the benefit of using a one on one tutor if you can afford it is for my son they just pointed out some really basic things in his weakness English /reading section. His score dramatically improved like overnight.
For the Act he needed a lot of practice since the test was “fast” for him. He needed to practice “timing” of the test more so then some of the material. These little things again dramatically improved his scores. On the practice tests he wasn’t finishing the tests. But what he did finish, he did well on.
Both my kids were told they were “Sat” type kids… Wrong… Both excelled on the ACT.
Take both practice tests and see what makes sense for your child.
This counselor may well have given the terrible advice reported. It’s also possible that it was given with a lot of context and limitations not repeated here.
Did also wonder if the advice was taken out of context, but we can only go by what the OP reported.
As for the PSAT/ NMSF status, even if she doesn’t need the Benacquista, being a NMSF/NMF is attractive to UF and IMO would make her a more attractive candidate. She needs to get test scores up. GPA, Strength/difficulty of curriculum/classes taken and standardized test scores are primary admission factors.