Dear Applicant, We write to acknowledge receipt of your application, submitted correctly and within the deadline, and to thank you for the interest you have shown in this institution. That interest is genuinely appreciated, and it will have no bearing on anything that follows. The selection committee convened in ordinary session and, following a discussion that ran considerably longer than scheduled for reasons entirely unconnected to your file — the air conditioning — proceeded to assess each application individually. Yours was reached seventeenth, by which point few people remained in the room and fewer still were paying attention. It should be noted that your application met every formal requirement. It was complete, it was signed, it carried the correct supporting documents and one we had not asked for. It scored highly on merit. On suitability it scored higher still. None of this proved decisive. The committee has resolved to decline your application. The reasons are recorded in the minutes, the minutes are held in a filing cabinet, and the filing cabinet is in a basement to which the only key belongs to a colleague who retired in March. You may appeal this decision in writing within twenty-eight days of the date of this letter. We should advise you now that any such appeal will be dismissed — not on procedural grounds, and not for want of merit, but because it will be considered by the person signing this letter. Thanking you once again for your interest, and encouraging you to apply to future rounds, which will be advertised, adjudicated and declined with precisely this level of courtesy, we remain Yours faithfully. No.