Someone messaged me recently asking how my experience applying to SSC was, and I figured that other people might also get some use out of the list of tips I made. For context, I applied twice for the Swift Student Challenge - once in 2021, and once in 2022. I failed miserably my first year but won the year after :)

Here's the stuff I learned from 2 years of wwdc-ing:

• Apple judges will compile your code on the spot, run it on the spot, and literally see how your code looks like. It’s not a prerecorded demo, so having your app work reliably with (relatively) clean code is a top priority.
• Submit at least 1 week before the deadline - trust me you do not want to be trying to fix stuff right before the deadline - it leads to more unstable code and also the amount of stress will be unreal just plan to submit early.
• It’s a “Swift Playgrounds app experience”, not an app - this is an important distinction! Even if an app is great for the app store, it might not be a good “experience”, and vice versa. Aim to create something that can be fully experienced in ~2-3 minutes. “App experiences” do NOT have to have long-term download value, but it should be a nifty 2 minute experience.
• Essays matter!! the “optional” prompts are not optional if you wanna win, I have seen nobody in the past 4 years win without doing the optional essays. Think them through and plan them just as well as your actual app.
• Make a hundred thousand backups of every stage of your app because you never know when it will break out of nowhere.
• Head over to https://www.wwdcscholars.com/**The Swift Student Challenge used to be called the WWDC Scholarship to see past winners’ projects and profiles. it’s pretty insightful on what kind of projects apple likes (especially for each age group). Usually learning/accessibility/security/general apple fanboying is a safe bet but not a surefire solution so don’t limit yourself to what you see on here!
• Join the WWDCScholars* discord server if you want to tackle this seriously, there’s tons of people there working on the challenge and you can ask for help, get info, and whatnot.
• There is a Swift Playgrounds app setting to show detailed error messages - turn it on!