I've heard a couple of early approvals from different sources. Some of them are age-out cases, but others are not. Here's the link for the one I posted:
http://bbs.mit.edu/cgi-bin/BBSdoc?UImmigration=6636
(look into the titles with "GC approved")
I once heard that some early approvals were due to training (besides age-out). Basically it means that when some senior officers want to show newly-hired officers how to adjudicate a case, they just pulled one from the stack and went through the process and approved it.
Given that INS (or BCIS) has lost officers to Iraq, National Guards (because some of them are reservists), and to retirement (earlier this year I heard quite a lot of experienced BCIS officers retired), service centers are hiring new officers (another post said Nebraska and Vermont centers each added 100 officers). These types of "training-related" approvals may increase in number.
However, you got to have the same luck as winning the superlotto to get your case picked out from the huge piles of I-485 cases.
http://bbs.mit.edu/cgi-bin/BBSdoc?UImmigration=6636
(look into the titles with "GC approved")
I once heard that some early approvals were due to training (besides age-out). Basically it means that when some senior officers want to show newly-hired officers how to adjudicate a case, they just pulled one from the stack and went through the process and approved it.
Given that INS (or BCIS) has lost officers to Iraq, National Guards (because some of them are reservists), and to retirement (earlier this year I heard quite a lot of experienced BCIS officers retired), service centers are hiring new officers (another post said Nebraska and Vermont centers each added 100 officers). These types of "training-related" approvals may increase in number.
However, you got to have the same luck as winning the superlotto to get your case picked out from the huge piles of I-485 cases.