Sequence of events for my case
April 15 2001,
Sent appl forms to Buffalo.
Jun 20 2001,
Recieved letter stating that consl. is in reciept of the applications.
Oct 15 2001,
Recieved letter stating that initial assesment has been done and I need to provide the police certificate. It was also mentioned that at this point they dont see a need for the interview, but they also said that they could change their mind at a later date and they could call me for the same.
I sent everything like birth certificate, work experience, degree certs, etc the very first time on Apr.
I left out the police certificate since I did not know the procedure for getting one.
I feel AOR is not the same as assesment. In my case I recieved the AOR in Jun but the assesment came in OCT. So the 30 week rule is met in this case. Moreover I think 30 week is a conservative amount, it could turn out to be less depending on the case.
Hope, this answers some of the questions.