The "Annual Reject"

The other day, I had a new experience that while odd, seemed to make some sense within the general purview of graduate school.  I received a letter from Columbia's Council for European Studies rejecting a grant application that I never submitted in the first place.   I was wondering what might have prompted this seemingly odd rejection, and I came up with a few possible explanations:

1) The CES targets people randomly for rejection to boost the prestige of the fellowship (the more rejections, the more competitive and hence prestigious the fellowship appears).

2) The CES mixed up last year's and this year's applications, in which case I deeply pity the poor reviewers who most certainly lost a good deal of z's having to review double the amount of applications.

3) Or most likely, the CES is mean-spirited and takes pleasure in repeatedly rejecting people.  I imagine the subtext of the letter reading something like this: "In case you were beginning to forget that we rejected yo' ass last year, we gonna reject yo' ass again this year.  And you better watch out 'cause we just might reject yo' ass again next year, and there ain't nothin' yo' ass (nor any other part of your body for that matter) can do about it!!" 

So if you ever have in mind to apply for a CES fellowship, just beware of the possibility that you may become, like me, one of their "annual rejects."