The biggest mistake I made is not sending through a courier where I can track. I sent through USPS Priority Mail which, I cannot track. Now, the only way I can tell the package reached CIO is when they deduct money from my credit card. I assume mine reached CIO on Nov 16 as well as told by the person from the post office. Good luck to ahorse, Knight and Madhura for your applications reached CIO successfully. The current timeline from what I know is 2 months for Money Orders / Cashier's check and 3 months for credit card candidates to get the AOR. Hopefully, things should go well on time.
By the way, Knight, answering to your question on the documents I prepare - I am in the process of applying for my PCC from FBI and different states I lived in the US. Also, I am sending my notarized marksheet to the University to provide me sealed transcripts. Gathering employment letter in the format asked by CIC. Preparing for IELTS for my exam on December 5, 2009. Organizing things with bank in such a way that my statement shows sufficient funds when I send them after AOR to Buffalo. Let's see how this goes.
My only concern is, in the application to CIO, I have mentioned that I am proficient in English and when they asked am I going to send one of the approved test results, I answered no. Because, at that point, I was thinking the 'first language' as academic first language which is English for me. Then after doing some research, I developed certain level of ambiguity and decided to take the safer route by applying for IELTS. If they assign no points for IELTS even though I am proficient in English and even though I am taking IELTS, I will be getting only 57 points approximately. I am only praying that this shouldn't happen. If they assign the full points as I have claimed proficient and allow me to prove my proficiency when I send the full application set, I have no problems because, I will have my IELTS results by then. Let's see how it goes.
Thank you.