the same here... i'm waiting for their spanish department but no news since the end of january. i know, from their website, that now they are on spring break and will return on monday but nothing more...
Well, I guess it depends on who you ask, as you say, but what I've heard, from an inside student is that all the advisors are not as approachable as one might expect. Just my two cents
I know it has some interesting people, but it depends a lot to which subfield you are applying (I'm going for spanish and have heard some not so good things about about them). Can you be more specific?