After a little getting lost time, I finally found the office.  It was an obscure building in tucked away at the end of a rocky driveway.  I walked inside to meet with the alumnus who would conduct the required interview for my application to Penn. Never much enjoying the process of meeting new people, and easily intimidated, I am tremendously nervous for this interview that could potential make-or-break my application.

I sit down in the chair across from Dr. Schmidt. I fidget nervously as he begins the conversation, fishing, it seems, for something.  I understand the college game — everyone needs to be unique.  Something “special” needs to define you, to make you stick out from the crowd so that you are selected over the other 1500 applicants.  I never much liked those sort of games, but he seemed to want to play it on my behalf.

Soccer was my defining characteristic, but that didn’t satisfy him.  He seemed to want something more.  I sat politely as we chatted, my left hand holding my right hand…my personal version of folded hands; a much more comfortable position.  I must have shifted in my seat and my right hand became visible.

“What happened to your hand?  Were you hiding it?”

That was an interesting angle.  Was I hiding it?  No, I don’t think so.  I mean, I sit like this because it’s comfortable.  I always have.  But is it an intentional way to hide my hand?  Hmm, I’m really not sure.  I’ve never thought about that before.  But I don’t have the time to ponder all of that now, I need to respond to this man in front of me.

“No, I wasn’t hiding it.  I just like to sit like that.  It’s called Poland Syndrome thought, I was born with it.”

He didn’t seem too convinced about not hiding it.  “Poland Syndrome?  I’ve never heard of it,” he says as he rises from his desk and turns to grab a book off of his shelf.

“Not much is known about it.  It occurs more often to boys than to girls, and more often on the right side than the left, but no one knows why it happens.”

He listens to me speak as he flips through his book, seemingly to find my mystery condition listed in his reference book.  He stops at a page, scans it for all of 7 seconds before closing the book and saying, “Sounds like you know a lot about it.”  Clearly his book didn’t say much more than I share.

He returns to his seat; he has found what he was fishing for.

Over the next 10 minutes, he asks questions about PS, how it has affected me, what challenges I have had to face and overcome. I am entirely uncomfortable, and try to brush off all his questions to make the condition “not a big deal.”  But he clearly knows what he is wanting and pursues it.  This is certainly what makes me different.  I can’t imagine too many other Penn applicants having Poland Syndrome.  This well educated man who has clearly conducted interviews many times before knows exactly what it takes to write a stellar recommendation on my behalf.

And so I sit, and answer the questions and provide the information he wants.  There is no point in fighting in.

The interview is over quickly and I am on my way home.  Still uncomfortable with all that transpired, but it is done now.  And apparently it worked, because my acceptance letter to one of the top business schools in the entire country is in my mailbox not too long after.  I am on my way to Wharton, Poland Syndrome and all.