I'll throw my two cents in. It's based on my experiences as a bad swab at the Coast Guard Academy, but Swab Summer and Plebe Summer aren't THAT different.
You will here people say "it's a big game." It's not. It didn't feel like "a game" as a swab and it certainly didn't feel like a game as a cadre. That said, you will be afraid to fail, and when you do fail (and you WILL fail) you will be corrected. Often that correction comes in the form of yelling, sometimes it's physical.
You cadre know you'll fail. They don't want you to fail, but they have failed too. The key is, once you've failed at something learn from it. And don't keep that knowledge to yourself, teach others about your failure (and how do avoid it).
We use to say swabs had one of two problems; a skill problem or a will problem. If it was a skill problem, it was up to us to teach them the required skills. You don't drop the kid in the middle of an academy and expect him or her to just know how to do things. You train them. Sometimes it's vocal... sometimes it's painful, but there's nothing wrong with failing at something you've never done and have no idea how to do. You fail and learn.
The second problem, a will problem, is a much bigger problem. A swab that had a will problem didn't care. The swab thought it really was a game, or that nothing really matter, or just wanted to skate through the summer. These people either resisted training, didn't care to learn from mistakes or gave up easily.
In my experience, people with will problems either turned it around or left.
It's true to don't want to be a lightning rod. You don't want to be "noticed." I had the bad luck of being noticed. I did poorly on my indoc one day (I couldn't identify one of the cadre) and that was that. I was the person that would be asked questions. And sometimes, the more focus you get, the more you stumble, the more it snowballs. I went from getting yelled at about my room or shoes or creases or greeting.... to getting ITed (incentive training.... like PT.... only meant to punish), marched out to a van to pick the van that would take me home. It was pretty chilling. I wasn't resistant to the training. Maybe I approached it a little too casually, thinking "it's just something to get through" but when you screw up, it can come back to haunt you, and if you do it enough, it will be a very unpleasant summer.
Who has it worse? Well, you should show up physically fit. Not everyone does, and if you don't it will just add to your stress. The summer is physical enough that you will be in better shape. We had swabs who stuggled physically, but they got better, it just happened.
What would anger cadre was a swab who had an attitude. You want to feel the wrath of angry cadre? Act like your better than your classmates. Act like your better than your cadre. Act like your the smoothest, coolest kid in the world, and that this whole swab summer and academy thing is just a formality between you and your commission. I don't care how fit you are, there are plenty of tools to break you, to humble you, and to remind you that you don't have those four admiral stars just yet. I've seen and made enought physically fit kids (with will problems) cry to know that anyone can break and no one is better than anyone else. And part of the knowledge comes from my understanding of how poorly I did as a swab, and remember lessons I had learned.
But your best bet? Be a physically fit plebe who is willing and able to learn, and willing and able to help a shipmate out. Don't do it for the show, do it because it's the right thing to do.
