OCS is just as competitive in its own way, not an easy go-to if other tracks don’t pan out. It is the “adjustment valve” for line officer intakes, with class size and numbers of classes/FY varying with intakes from USNA, NROTC, enlisted commissioning programs, some other pipelines such as NUPOC. There is a target range in the manpower models each year, governed by law, for how many officers in each paygrade. Attrition and other factors help determine the OCS intake each year. If they hit that goal, they reduce intake accordingly.
The Navy cherry-picks exactly who it needs to fill various recruiting goals. Of course, the Navy loves high-performing STEM majors witha B.S. from well-regarded universities. The competition is the NUPOC who successfully completed his/her college program and is allotted a seat, or the top-performing enlisted sailor who got his/her college degree after-hours or through another funded program, earned their CO’s highest recommendation. The officer recruiters who visit colleges are looking for those academic performers who are well-rounded, and if they happen to meet diversity goals at the same time as delivering top quality in other desired attributes, this is how the Navy finds OCs from all over the country, perhaps finding those who had not considered Navy service.
Even though your DS is gearing up for another shot at USNA, I recommend him seeking out the officer recruiter for his area, and having a candid conversation on a strategy for OCS.
Officer recruiters are not found in the local strip mall office; those recruiters are focused on enlisted recruiting. Officer recruiters travel and work out of Navy Recruiting Districts. Calling and asking to speak to an officer recruiter who covers OCS is how you find them.
https://www.navycs.com/districts.html
He should also be able to articulate his cogent reasons for taking a year off from applying, as well as ruling out NROTC as a path to service. There is no one “correct” way to a commission, he just needs to be able to answer the obvious questions.
If he is pre-law, is he interested in serving as a Navy JAG after, presumably, attending law school? The Navy gets most of its JAGs from civilian colleges, and sends them through a direct commission program, ODS, after law school. That is a fine way to go, if he wants to serve. That’s another topic with the officer recruiter noted above.
https://www.jag.navy.mil/careers_/careers/opportunities_sp.html#lq1