Unlike in my era, Admissions can choose whoever they like out of the 10 versus possible the most qualified by an objective score. With all the criteria involved in choosing candidates, obviously the weighting on fixed scoring (PRT, SAT/ACT, Grades, etc) versus other items such as extracurricular, leadership, sports, volunteer work, Boy Scouts, JROTC and so on becomes critical, but it would be nice to have candidate packages go to the board, minus race, gender, and ethnicity, so that the Academies chose the most qualified versus discrimination.
First, the decision of the Admissions Board to qualify someone is NOT strictly based on the whole person multiple. The WPM is entering argument...case and point...I had a candidate that had mediocre academics (nowhere near some of the candidates on this board) and was found board qualified (Caucasian male) because of, what I believe to be, other areas in his application (not going into specifics). So WPM isn't the end all, be all, as Admissions has told BGOs. Furthermore, the number of fully qualified candidates has been over 3,000 the last few years (so the earlier post stating 2,400 isn't accurate in today's process...but was about right close to a decade ago)...the Admissions Board isn't the ones deciding appointments...they decide if someone is "scholastically qualified," which also means that a candidate has the potential to make it through the USNA program and, ultimately, commission as an officer. For a majority of the Admissions cycle, the Admissions Board has NO IDEA who may or may not get appointments, so yes, they could qualify more candidates (of all different races/ethnicities/genders) to expand the pool, but in the Admissions Board opinion, they found them qualified (for a reason, I presume beyond just their ethnic background or gender)....remember, of the approximate 6,000 cases reviewed by the board, only a little more than a half will be fully qualified (yes, some of those are medically/CFA DQ'd). There are candidates of all backgrounds who aren't found board qualified. The record viewed by the AB does have the ethnic background listed (basically one line, that is almost obscured...in other data) and I doubt that is the first thing that is looked at. Given the amount of time the AB has to spend on a record, if they do look at the ethnic background, they are probably looking at all the OTHER, pertinent data as well or they are clearly negligent in their job (highly disbelief the latter). But I digress...they still do not know who is getting appointments. Remember, many appointments don't occur until late December/January+, when quite a few AB decisions have already been made.
Once all of the candidates in a slate all have been reviewed and later in the Admissions process, the Admissions Office starts matching appointments. Yes, this is where some of the decisions to "fit" the class do occur. So now how does USNA know who is the best "fit?" All the candidates being considered for an appointment MUST be fully qualified (or LOA, if medically DQ'd pending waiver). So Admissions is choosing qualified candidates...based on the recommendation of the Admissions Board, who for the majority part of the Admissions process, have no clue on who is going to receive an appointment. The AB, essentially, provides a list of qualified candidates to the Admissions Office, who then matches them to slates, nomination sources, national pool, etc. So the claim that race/gender factors in...I'm sure that is true (I mean it has basically been mandated from the chain-of-command that ethnic % of officers = ethnic % of enlisted). However, the claim that somehow, the candidates with various ethnic/gender backgrounds, are less qualified...I don't necessarily believe. Which leads me into the rhetorical question of...how does one know who is best qualified (and with future potential to commission...obviously, this is probably a harder task), given all the different combinations of objective stats (college entrance exams) and subjective (i.e. rigor of H.S. course load, leadership activities, teacher/BGO reports, personal/family hardships/situations, character situations)? Thus, that is the point of the Admissions Board and there always will need to be a human factor to "balance" the subjective and objective data. "Best/most" qualified isn't an easy task. Also, when slates are submitted, specifically, if competitive...there isn't a stipulation that the most qualified candidate, per the WPM, be selected.
Is the process perfectly fair? I would argue it probably isn't...but I don't think you would ever get it to be perfectly fair. Next will be the arguments about recruited athletes, the purpose of NAPS and who should be there, etc. How do you satisfy everyone?