points are basically for putting doubles games together at clubs and a vague idea of who's a potential playing partner.

i basically got dropped off from six-13 at a day camp with a couple of serious kids/parents and as much of an emphasis on tennis as you wanted to make it. tagged along to some nelta stuff with the overbearing parent-crowd and a half-dozen or so(mostly losses) sanctioned matches was like 82 in u-14 for new england. then went to boarding school and didn't step on a court. five or six private lessons later if you went by numbers i'd have probably run around my backhand and shanked the ball into the rafters i'd have been a two, muscle memory kicks in and after a blitzkrieg of just hitting thousands of balls i can play with a guy who was second singles in d3, whatever that means in terms of numbers i've no idea.

if you find a pro who's cool with you dictating that you don't care about getting better by the end of the day, but just figuring out the mechanics of what it feels like to swing right at the edge of control and start getting a few balls in that's how you get much better not incrementally. it'll be ugly at first, but group lessons aren't how you figure out how to take balls on the rise and just how much topspin it takes to keep the ball in the court hitting hard.

the other thing is watching a bunch of 3.5 guys isn't going to give you any sense of how things SHOULD look. watch a few rounds at roland garros this spring, see the way they use the court's angles and dimensions, watch murray, nadal, the joker, nalbandian, etc swing and go hit some balls. you'll be better through osmosis. find the 99 wimbledon finals, mac in 84, federer from 06, watch them and try to emulate something about how they can move someone around the court from their centerline, how a kicked-to-hell second serve drops, etc. you can't see it at a club or clinic, but it'll be in your head as to what "looks right"