Please help! (Advice on Beida and application times)

[onepassitis]

Hey everyone!

This is a great site, and I've gotten so much great info from reading various posts on here. A couple of quick questions.

1) I recently applied for Beida's general visiting students program for Fall 2006. I applied pretty much really close to the deadline, actually my application arrived a day late, but after sending am e-mail the staff at Beida said it was ok. Does anyone know how long it takes from them to go through the appplications and contact admitted students?

2) How difficult is it be accepted for such a program? (I intend on being a Chinese Language student for at least a yr) Is acceptance based on rolling admissions?

3) Can someone list some top year long programs for learning Mandarin in Beijing please. I've studied Chinese intensively for one year at school. I just graduated from the University of Michigan btw.

Thanks for all the help everyone!