In the instructions, it states that you need to submit an essay for the question. Am I to answer all the questions in the form of my essay? I do not see a place to submit an essay.
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A good indicator is the word count limit. If you take a look at the Swift Student Challenge submission form, you'll see that there's two non-optional text boxes that have:
- a limit of 500 words for describing your App Playground (seems to have increased from last year! hooray! 🎉), and
- a limit of 200 words for describing how you used your coding skills "Beyond the Swift Student Challenge".
I believe these are the main essays, based on the word limit and the prompt itself. At least, these are the questions for which I responded in the form of an essay during my previous years' submissions.
Other text prompts, essays
There is a prompt asking you to describe your app in one sentence, in a concise manner. You definitely don't want to write an essay for this one.
Depending on whether you used open source software, other than Swift, or content that you don't have ownership rights to, you will have two 200-word boxes to explain your use. I assume you’re not supposed to write an essay for these; likely the limit is set this high to allow enough space.
There is also an App Store (optional) entry which is not mandatory and doesn't influence the judjing process. I think you can write an essay here as well, if you've published apps to the App Store before.
Also, there is a Social Media (optional) entry. Based on its' description, I assume you don't have to write an essay about your socials, but I believe it rather has the 200-word limit so that you're able to link everything you want. Maybe you can provide a short description for each?
Some closing remarks
Finally, I don't think you're required to write an essay close to the word limit, but personally, I always tended to write more than 300 words (which I believe used to be the limit for the App Playground essay), and had to shrink it down. Write as much as you think it's needed to describe your app and yourself.
If anyone else has any tips on the essays, I'd also be willing to hear them! :)
Note: I am not a judge. I am a previous years' participant, also planning to also submit an app this year. I am writing from my experience, but take this with a grain of salt! Use your own judgement and, don't forget, be yourself!
Good luck!