I have been religiously watching the USNA 2020 Appointment thread and was curious to know how many of the offered appointments were recruited for a varsity sport and/or blue-chipped?
The SA admissions process is complicated, there are a few simple answers. Can't speak for USNA, but I can speak for USMA. Probably safe to assume that their process is similar. So simple answer is several hundred, but the number is meaningless. But the number you might be interested in is how many candidates get some help from being recruited?
USMA has goals for recruited athletes for both direct appointment and the prep school. Some of the recruited athletes are fully qualified and competitive enough for direct appointment regardless if they are being recruited or not. Typically about 30% or more from the prep school are recruited athletes, they are little be different as being recruited got them to the Prep school, but they have to put in a year into improve themselves and not all prep school kids get appointed. I believe the admissions office shuffles candidates, when they can, to get competitive recruited athletes appointments (i.e. if a recruited athlete is #2 candidate in a Congressional district, the admissions office could appoint the #1 candidate against a different slot and push up the #2 candidate to be #1 in the district). The last situation will be the Supe's nomination, but it's limited.