The problem with saying things like this isn’t that they’re time consuming to say, but that they open you up to some risk of the applicant getting really mad at you, and have various other other risks like this. These costs can be mitigated by being careful (eg picking phrasings very intentionally, running your proposed feedback by other people) but being careful is time-consuming.
One solution could be to have a document with something like „The 10 most common reasons for rejections“ and send it to people with a disclaimer like „We are wary of giving specific feedback because we worry about [insert reasons]. The reason why I rejected this proposal is well covered among the 10 reasons in this list and it should be fairly clear which ones apply to your proposal, especially if you would go through the list with another person that has read your proposal.“
The problem with saying things like this isn’t that they’re time consuming to say, but that they open you up to some risk of the applicant getting really mad at you, and have various other other risks like this. These costs can be mitigated by being careful (eg picking phrasings very intentionally, running your proposed feedback by other people) but being careful is time-consuming.
One solution could be to have a document with something like „The 10 most common reasons for rejections“ and send it to people with a disclaimer like „We are wary of giving specific feedback because we worry about [insert reasons]. The reason why I rejected this proposal is well covered among the 10 reasons in this list and it should be fairly clear which ones apply to your proposal, especially if you would go through the list with another person that has read your proposal.“