The feeling of getting into Ross had sunk in and I had just had a good time with fellow admits in Bangalore. While I was having lunch on 20th (Fri), I got a call from Jim, who was a current student at Ross and was in Bangalore for his MAP Project. The school was arranging a dinner meeting between the admits in Bangalore and the current students.

I decided to go formal as I wasn’t sure how things would pan out. But that evening, before I left office, I got my “Admissions Binder”. There was my admissions letter, a blue binder and a cool Ross T-Shirt. I sent a message to Brian (one of the students) and the reply came “No dress code. Go for it! Love to see the maize and blue“. And so it was, I walked into “Toscanos” at UBCity Mall at 7 pm to meet with the guys, wearing the Ross T-Shirt and a blazer (still wanted to keep it formal)

I met Karthik and Sachin there, dressed in their suits, right out of their client meetings. In like 10 minutes, the Ross guys walked in and I felt over-dressed. They were dressed in casual T-Shirts and Jeans and here we were looking like we came to close a deal (except for my Ross T-Shirt). Pat (Patrick Stack) and Rajesh were the first to arrive, followed by Brian and Jim. All 4 of them were doing a project at a start-up in Bangalore, making a personalized push-email device called Peek. They came to dinner, hoping to convince us about Ross, but we were already there :)

The discussion was lively, ranging from introductions to the state of the economy to the school. There was a fair bit of discussion around housing and apartments and the preparation to transition to school. They said it would have been great if we could have attended GBR, but asked us not to skip MTrek. In fact, couple of them were leading MTreks to Costa Rics and Hawaii.

Sachin and Rajesh started talking about the entrepreneurial activities at school while Brian, Jim and Karthik was talking about culture and some aspects of BSchool life. Me and Pat started talking, finding common-ground with Adobe. Pat was a web-developer in his “past-life” and an avid Adobe fan. He was also the co-president of the Entertainment+Media Club, which I want to be a part of when I get to school.

Later, they showed us the Peek and I gave my observations on the device. We had a lively chat on the market positioning, selling-points and they were really keen on getting some new perspectives on the device. Personally I thought it was a brilliant low-cost device for companies to stay in touch with employees, but it lacked an enterprise look-and-feel.

The whole meeting kind of cemented my view about Ross as a place where the students were brilliant at what they do, but down-to-earth in their approach. I enjoyed the evening, the discussions, the food (which was quite nice). The only low point of the evening was a scare that I had when I lost my keys and was running around trying to find them after all the guys had left. I managed to find them and got back home contented that Ross was indeed a great choice as I had expected it to be. Go Blue!

L-R: Pat, Brian, Karthik, Rajesh, Sachin, Me & Jim