In 1918, the Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels signed a provision to have up to 100 sailors from the fleet to be eligible for entry to the Academy.

Due to the difficult nature of the Naval Academy's entrance examination, then Undersecretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt (future 32nd President) also allowed for a school to be founded to prepare Sailors and Marines for entry.

While attending NAPS, all midshipman candidates, affectionately known as "NAPSters",[5] are on active duty military status,[4] holding the rank of Midshipman Candidate, equivalent to the Navy's Seaman Recruit, at the enlisted pay grade of E-1, although this is significantly reduced in an effort to allocate funds into the Battalion Activity Fund (BAF) and to pay off all debts owed due for issued uniforms and miscellaneous items.

The BAF is used to pay for physical fitness clothing and equipment, textbooks and various student activity expenses, such as the Army-Navy game, Graduation Ball and the like.

[5] Stripers are selected by the senior military staff and serve the term of one marking period,[clarification needed] after which they rotate out with new midshipmen candidates.

The responsibilities of stripers are: delegating orders from the senior military staff to the students, taking accountability of the battalion, writing the watchbill for other students, organizing their respective companies and platoons for each event the midshipmen candidates attend, and maintaining general cleanliness of Ripley Hall.

Midshipmen candidates that are not on any of the school teams, as well as athletes during their sports off-season, must participate in daily physical training.

Each midshipman candidate will take the USNA's Physical Readiness Test (PRT), four times throughout the school year.