I contacted the majority of my schools (departments) last year. Most of them didn't reply, but a few did. Of the ones that did, I believe one gave me a run of the mill response (your application was competitive but we had an overwhelming number of competitive applications, better luck next year), and the others gave me detailed information. One went as far as to mention other schools that I might want to consider when I reapply, in addition to that school, based on my research interests. Another basically broke down my application to all the different factors (GPA, GRE, etc.) and gave me v