From Imagine app, I believe the prompt was just the title.
You don't have to write an essay. I literally just wrote "because I'm leaving reddit" and got in a couple days later. Makes sense that approval times may be longer with more people leaving. But, I agree it is a bit much. I use Lemmy.world too just because I didn't want to initially wait a couple days to be approved.
I'll throw my hat in with 45