My wife has applied for OPT in the beginning of this month 7th June 2011. And the USCIS has not cashed our check yet. She is currently working as an intern in a firm on CPT till August 10th. The firm where she is working is willing to give her a work opportunity beyond August 10th. So she needs her OPT to be able to continue to work after August 10th.

USCIS processing times website says they need 2.5 months to process the OPT application, but we dont have that much time. Is there anyway to expedite the OPT processing, (something like premium processing)?

Please help !

Also, the college says she cant work till she gets her OPT card in hand. Is this true ? Can she work on F1-Visa/Status while her OPT application is pending with USCIS ?