ohi

I understand your anxiety, but it is not necessarily warranted. Naturally you are correct that many people, even those among us who are supposed to be highly educated, make stereotyped assumptions about others based on labels. As you are surely already aware, people with Asperger's label are gifted with unusual levels of talent. Often the talent is a result of the disability. As Baron-Cohen has suggested, perhaps Asperger's is not a disability after all, since many with it contribute so much, and so remarkably, to society. My point is: Even though in the past you may have found yourself more comfortable in a way "controlling" the release of this information, that your professor has learned about it from your mentor does not necessarily mean that the professor has come to negative assumptions or conclusions about your abilities, as a result of this knowledge. In fact, the very opposite may be true. You won't know until you meet him, and even then perhaps not, even if the subject arises in your interview. Further, you don't know whether he also struggles with disabilities of his own. Since you're in the running for a doctoral degree, my suspicion is that you too are a highly talented person who happens to have Asperger's. As fuzzylogician noted, your social skills are clearly in tact, otherwise you wouldn't have such a strong relationship with your current mentor, nor gotten to the point where you are now -- apparently, according to what you wrote, after some struggle with a one-size-fits-all education system. This process of interviewing is fraught with anxiety for all who go thru it. From that baseline, it makes sense that this is raising your nerves. Try to remember that there in fact may not be any "fears" (as you put it) for you to allay, not that you should have to anyway. Focus confidently on your strengths that you bring as a candidate. I don't know what PhD program you are pursuing, but it seems that focusing too much on a disability is, in fact, too much. If it does come up in some way, stay positive, and always keep your focus on what you're there for, so tie it all to your research and learning, and make it a footnote. Good luck!