afu1428,
Your petition might be screwed up if you say something like this. You will have to stress that currently a extraordinary researcher (no matter you reach the level of that Stanford guy or not. Actually you do not need to reach that level). Anything saying " Potentially Extraordinary" or "will be extraordinary" is going to have negative effect based on my experience. I believe if you package your current credentials well and obtain a few more strong reference letters, you will be fine.
You might want to consider the following that I found very helpful when I deal with my RFE a few weeks ago (my case was approved the second day after they received my response):
1. Obtain 2 to 4 additional letters from experts in your relavent areas whom you "do not know". In these letters, they have to stress at the begining like "I do not consider myself with the circle of Dr. XXX's acquiatance or colleagues" or "I know of Dr. XXX' through his articles published in prestigious journals and through his presentation in international conferences". Among these letters, it would be very helpful if one is from a high level technical staff member or technical manager in national lab or federal research agencies (NASA, AMRY, Air Force, Navy, NIST, etc... any of them should work). Avoid any sentence like " Dr. XXXX will become an extraordinary scientist" or "he has potentials for XXXXXXX). Note that USCIS judges your qualification based on your CURRENT credits. Obtain a long letter from you Ph.D. advisor to claim you are well qualified for each item they questioned.
2. Write a good cover letter (3 to 4 page long). Refer to evidences you provide and fight back on each items they questioned politely.
3. Package your response in a nice way, add labels to each documents when necessary. Make sure the USCIS officer can easily find your evidence/document when you refer each. Do this by yourself. Do not trust lawyer.
When they request RFE, basically they want to approve your case. Do not think USCIS officers are idiots no matter if they really are or not. Treat it as if your manuscript submitted to a journal is requested for revision/explanation by peer-reviewers, but use easy-to-understand language. It is worth taking one month or more to prepare the Response. You have to trust you are really extraordinary.
