I haven't applied this year but I really hate that rejection email. I hope one day YC could man up and tell why it was refused rather then giving a "You don't need to get in to create a successful business" bullshit. Even if it's only one sentence.
I feel like not doing so is really lacking respect for the teams who put hours filling it up. Add on top of that the fact that some demos are not even tried.
As some people like to say, applications are only for the people who didn't find a better way to get in.
There are thousands of people who apply. They can't possibly find the time to reply to all of them. Maybe a few of the borderline ones, but in reality you can't expect them to spend weeks responding to everyone.
And on top of that - most of the borderline projects would probably get an interview if they didn't have so many applications, so even those would be impossible to give a clear reason as to why they weren't picked aside from saying "we thought X other projects were more promising"
Replies could be generated automatically. Since I presume they are checking applications on computers/tablets they could make checks next to each question. The person reviewing the application could simply check "Not good enough" or "Deal-breaker" next to the answer. It wouldn't be a lot but at least you'd get some idea on what needs improvement, and it wouldn't take much effort on their part. Or am I over-simplifying this?
I feel like not doing so is really lacking respect for the teams who put hours filling it up. Add on top of that the fact that some demos are not even tried.
As some people like to say, applications are only for the people who didn't find a better way to get in.