Timeline
Jan 2006: Came to USA
March 2007: I-140 EB2NIW filed (self prepared)
July 2007: I-485 filed
Nov 30 2009: EB1-A e-filed to TSC (self prepared)
Jan-30-2010: EB1-A approved without RFE
Feb 10 2010: Request for relinking new I-140 to old 485 mailed (Pjiang’s template)
Feb-16 2010: Info-pass to confirm that the case was linked and picked out on shelf for review and I was asked to wait for 2 months
April 1-15 2010: Wrote to senator for assistance to speed up review process, also emailed NSC about my case and got reply saying my case was in transit to an IO for review.
May 7 2010: All family I-485 approved (The Senator’s office also called me, meaning the senator really helped)
My experience about EB-1A:
Cover letter should not be very long (1.5 page in my case); should be straightforward to your points, IOs are not professionals in your field of study, they do not understand a lot of terms; should highlight the referees’ title and position, should claim only those evidence you are confident about (very few can meet all requirements).
Non-selective memberships do not count and better not mention them otherwise you will impress IOs that you are not confident and probably trigger RFEs.
A Nature / cell paper or high citations do not guarantee approval because these vary from field to field of study. Most important is to prove your study has huge impact in the field by such as published commentary / media report on your work, references, and other forms of proof.
A well organized list of supporting evidence is critical. Do not include unnecessary documents or full-length paper. IOs won’t read them. If you are an IO, would you read 100 pages of materials when you don’t understand them? If you are bored, you will probably deny it. Strictly speaking only a very few are eligible for EB-1A, but still a lot of cases were approved. Whether your evidence is in favor of your petition is all at IOs’ discretion.