How many ranks are beneath Lieutenant in the Navy and how do you attain that rank?

Officer rank? There are only two. Lieutenant Junior Grade and Ensign.
There are many ranks below Ensign, but they are enlisted ranks. There are a bunch of them.

To get an officer rank you generally need a commission, and generally (but not always) officers go to college to get a degree and then get a commission. It doesn’t have to be Annapolis. If you go to ROTC in college and then to the Navy, you get a commission.

The weird thing is that the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy, an individual who is a career military and has decades of experience still has to technically salute to the greenest ensign.

This is true, but both understand who is the go to in emergencies.

@Patty_Melt Of course.

The enlisted ranks are called ratings, not ranks. Ranks apply to officers only. As @Caravanfan said, there are only two normal ranks below Lieutenant. However, there is an oddball rank of Warrant Officer. This is generally an enlisted person that made it all the way through master chief (the highest enlisted rating), and then applied for the commission. He (or she) basically use life experience in lieu of college, though some (probably most) do get degrees.

Here’s a list https://www.federalpay.org/military/navy/ranks

Looks like Lieutenant starts at O2, so maybe 12 grades below that? Enlisted through E9 and then W2-W5.

My dad was an O6 when he retired, which is Navy Captain rank. I think when he started he was an O3? But, I’m not completely sure, that might be when he started back after being out of the military for 8 years. He left and went back.

He already had a college degree (BS) when he first joined up. When he went back he had his PhD.

His job had a rank range I think, and then with time you get promoted also.

And while it is appropriate for a senior enlisted person to salute a junior officer, it doesn’t always happen. At one of my commands, the Command Master Chief was walking with the base commander when two ensigns approached from the other way. They both saluted and the base commander gave a cursory salute in return, but the Command Master Chief did nothing. As they passed, one of the ensigns said to the other “The master chief didn’t salute. Should I go say something?” The Master Chief stopped and walked back to them and said “Now you can tell your mommy you met a real sailor!” and went back to walking with the Commander.
While the ensigns were definitely in the right and the master chief was definitely in the wrong, it is not a serious infraction usually.

@seawulf575 That’s a great story. I’ve heard similar ones.

The best man at my wedding was a Commander who went up through from seaman apprentice (lowest of the enlisted).
He told enlisted on the facility that anyone who salutes him would get their butt kicked.
I told him fine, but I thought he was the most deserving of a salute of anyone on base.

He was a party animal, and had a great sense of humor, but he really knew his stuff too.

I asked since my husband tried to explain he enrolled in “OCS” after he got his bachelor’s and went directly in as a 2nd Lieutenant. Never understood it all.