Rating Structure
The U.S. Navy rating structure is confusing to most peopleoutside the organization. A brief overview of Navy enlisted rate and ratings follows. Two similar sounding terms are used to describe Navyenlisted status - rate and rating. Rate equates to military pay gradeand rating is one's occupational specialty. Petty officer third class (PO3) is a rate. Boatswain Mate is a rating. Used in combination, Boatswain Mate Third Class (BM3), defines both the rate, petty officer third class, and rating Boatswain Mate.

Pay Grade
Pay grade constitutes a numberingsystem from junior to senior, and is linear across all five branches of the U.S.military. The lowest military enlisted pay grade is E-1 and thehighest E-9 in the Army as well as the Navy. Officer pay gradesinclude W-1 through W-5 for warrant officers and O-1 through O-10 forofficers. Enlisted personnel may be promoted from enlisted towarrant officer status and in some cases directly to officer status. Inexample, the writer served as an E-1 through E-7, W-1 through W-4, andO-2 through O-6, sixteen different pay grades in a four decadecareer.

Rate or rank?
Rate, such as First ClassPetty Officer, describes the Navy enlisted pay grade E-6. Officers do not have rates but are said to have rank. Lieutenant(rank) describes a Naval officer of pay grade O-3. The officer'soccupational specialty is described in a numerical code.

Rating
A Navy rating is defined as anoccupation that consists of specific skills and abilities. Eachrating has its own specialty badge which is worn on the left sleeve by allqualified men and women in that field. In the Navy and Coast Guard, pay grades E-4 through E-9 fall within a rating and reflect a distinctlevel of achievement within the promotion pyramid.

• Navy announced on 29 September 2016 the historic naval rating system would be scuttled and replaced with a Navy Occupational Specialty Code (NOS) - numbers in lieu of the traditional rates. Following a cry from the Fleet and former Navy personnel the move was suspended by the CNO on 21 December 2016.
• CS(SS) - Culinary Specialist (Submarine): Culinary Specialists onboard submarines are some of the.

Original data: Muster Rolls of U.S. Navy Ships, Stations, and Other Naval Activities, -; A-1 Entry 135, 10230 rolls, ARC ID: 594996.Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, Record Group Number 24.

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General ratings. Broad occupational fields such as Electronics Technician, Machinist Mate or Electrician are general ratings. During World War I the Navy survived with but thirteen ratings. Through the years the Navy has used over 100 ratings with 60+ remaining in use today. In some cases ratings combine at the Senior Chief Petty Officer (E-8) or Master Chief Petty Officer (E-9) level. In example, CU Constructionman combines the Builder (BU), Engineering Aide (EA and) Steelworker (SW) Seabee ratings at the Senior Chief and Master Chief Petty Officer levels.

Service ratings. Service ratings are subcategories of general ratings that require further specialized trainingand qualifications. They are established and deleted with servicerequirements and changes in personnel management philosophy. Inexample, Gunner's Mate, a general rating, has been at times divided intothe service ratings of Gunner's Mate Guns (GMG) and Gunner's MateMissiles (GMM). Service ratings are most used in the E-4 and E-5 pay grade with the ratings merging at the senior Petty Officer level.

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Navy Enlisted Classifications (NEC). Numerical codesappended to a rating are heavily used in the modern Navy to indicate specializedqualifications. For example, a Master-at-Arms First Class with aspecialty of handling drug detecting dogs, is a MA1 (2005). A listof these NEC codes is provided in the Navy Personnel Command's reference library NAVPERS 180086F. The pdf file located off site. Note: NEC's are undergoing major revision (July 2017).
Emergency ratings. Emergency ratings may be established in time of war. World War Two saw twenty-twoNavy Specialist ratings and the Coast Guard used six additional Specialist ratings. The term Specialist evolved to Emergency Service Rating and finally to Emergency Rating in the thirty-two years of use. Emergency rating badges are distinguished by a letter of the alphabet enclosed in a diamond below the eagle. One example is Welfare & Recreation Leader, a 'W' inside a diamond. This emergency rating most often worked with the chaplain. The rate was discontinued following World War Two. For a number of years the chaplain's assistant was a Yeoman with NEC 2525. The YN (2525) became a full fledged rating in 1979 as the present day Religious Program Specialist, RP.

Non rate
A non rate (not rated) is oneserving in pay grade E-1 to E-3. The non rate is further subdividedby a general career path, aviation (airman), deck (seaman), engineering(fireman), construction (constructionman), and medical (hospitalman).

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Many bluejackets enter advanced training schools followingrecruit training to complete the entry level requirements for a careerfield. Graduates are designated in an occupational specialty eventhough they have not achieved Petty Officer status of pay grade E-4 andup. CSSN Jane P. Jones has passed the specific careerfield qualifications for entry into the general rating of Culinary Specialist, but is not a petty officer. CSdenotes the career field of Culinary Specialist and SN is the abbreviation forSeaman, the non rated E-3 pay grade.
Sailors who go directly to a station, ship or squadron withoutspecialized school training following recruit training are encouraged to select a careerfield. Through correspondence courses provided for self study and on-the-job training (OJT), they mayqualify for entry into a rating. This path is called'striking for rate.' A seaman working in the deckdepartment of a ship will by work assignment find herself most often in trainingfor the deck rating of Boatswain Mate. Many 'strikers' will ventureinto other departments to become a Yeoman, Damage Controlman or other rating as openings occur. Manytechnical ratings are restricted to formal school graduates and thereby closed to'strikers.' Having experienced the width and depth of Navy life, most'strikers' become excellent petty officers.