wharton case study book

Hacking the Case Interview

Where can I find MBA Consulting Casebooks?

Below, you will find links to download MBA consulting casebooks from 23 different business schools. These casebooks will provide you with over 700 practice cases that you can use to hone your case interview skills. These cases are a great supplement to the practice cases that consulting firms provide .

The year indicates when the consulting casebook was published. Some consulting clubs publish a new casebook each year while others may use the same casebook for multiple years. Therefore, even the older casebooks can still contain valuable practice cases.

If you’re looking for a step-by-step shortcut to learn case interviews quickly,  enroll in our case interview course . These insider strategies from a former Bain interviewer helped 30,000+ land consulting offers while saving hundreds of hours of prep time.

• Australian Graduate School of Management (2002)
• Booth (2005)
• Columbia (2007)
• Darden (2019)
• ESADE (2011)
• Fuqua (2018)
• Goizueta (2006)
• Haas (2019)
• Harvard Business School (2012)
• Illinois (2015)
• INSEAD (2011)
• Johnson (2003)
• Kellogg (2012)
• London Business School (2013)
• McCombs (2018)
• Notre Dame (2017)
• Queens (2019)
• Ross (2010)
• Sloan (2015)
• Stern (2018)
• Tuck (2009)
• Wharton (2017)
• Yale (2013)

What are Consulting Casebooks?

Consulting casebooks are documents that MBA consulting clubs put together to help their members prepare for consulting case interviews. Consulting casebooks provide some case interview strategies and tips, but they mostly contain case interview practice cases.

While consulting casebooks contain tons of practice cases, there is quite a bit of variety in the sources and formats of these cases.

Some practice cases are taken from actual consulting interviews given by consulting firms. These are the best types of cases to practice with because they closely simulate the length and difficulty of an actual case interview. Other practice cases may be written by the consulting club’s officers. These cases are less realistic, but can still offer great practice.

The formats of the practice cases in consulting casebooks also vary significantly.

Some practice cases are written in a question and answer format. This type of format makes it easy to practice the case by yourself, without a case partner. Other practices cases are written in a dialogue format. These cases are better for practicing with a case interview partner.

How do I use Casebooks to Practice Case Interviews?

How you should use consulting casebooks depends on whether you are practicing cases by yourself or practicing cases with a case partner.

Practicing Cases by Yourself

If you are trying to practice cases by yourself, you will need to find cases that are written in a question and answer format. Only in this format can you read the question, answer it, and then move onto the next question without getting any case spoilers.

To practice cases by yourself, read the case background. Then, summarize the case information out loud, verify the objective to yourself, and then ask clarifying questions out loud.

You likely won’t be able to answer any questions that you have by yourself, but talking to yourself out loud is good practice because it simulates what you would do in a real case interview.

Afterwards, take a few minutes to write out your case interview framework. Treat this like a real case interview, so don’t give yourself unlimited time to think about how you would structure your approach. When you have your framework written out, talk through it like you are explaining it to an interviewer.

Next, move onto the first case question. For each case question, talk through your thinking out loud as if you were in a real interview. If there is math involved, make sure you talk through your calculations out loud.

Once you have finished answering each case question, provide your final recommendation out loud. Make sure to suggest potential next steps.

Now that you have finished the case, you can review your answers and compare them to the sample answers. Try to identify areas of improvement or things that you could have done better.

For a comprehensive guide on how to practice case interviews by yourself, without a case partner, read this article .

Practicing Cases with a Case Partner

If you are practicing with a case partner, decide who is going to be giving the case and who is going to be receiving the case.

If you are giving the case, read the entire case information carefully. It may be helpful to read through everything twice so that you are familiar with all of the information and can answer any question that your partner asks you to clarify.

As the person giving the case, you need to be the case expert.

You should become familiar with the overall direction of the case. In other words, you should know what the major questions of the case are and what the major areas of investigation are. This will help you run the mock case interview more smoothly.  

Depending on whether you want the case interview to be interviewer-led or candidate-led, you will need to decide how much you want to steer the direction of the case.

If your partner gets stuck and is taking a long time, you may need to step in and provide suggestions or hints. If your partner is proceeding down a wrong direction, you will need to direct them towards the right direction.

Caveats to Using MBA Consulting Casebooks

In general, MBA consulting casebooks are great resources because they are free and provide tons of practice cases to hone your case interview skills. However, there are several caveats that you should be aware of.

1. Similarity to Real Case Interviews

Some cases in MBA consulting casebooks are not representative of actual case interviews because they are written by consulting club officers instead of interviewers from consulting firms.

For example, some cases may be too short or too long in length. Some cases could also be too technical or may require you to have specialized knowledge. If you come across a case that is way too complicated or way too simple, keep in mind that the case may not be representative of an actual case interview.

2. Quality of Sample Answers

While consulting casebooks provide sample solutions, these answers are often not the best or highest quality answers. If you use the answers in casebooks as your benchmark for what a great answer looks like, you may not be learning the best way to answer case interview questions.

3. Ease of Use

Consulting casebooks are all written in different formats and by different people. Therefore, it can be challenging to find cases that you can consistently use to practice cases by yourself or with a partner.

Case information may be written in an unorganized way. The main questions of the case may be hidden in the case background information or in the answers. You’ll have to learn the best way to read and digest each case in each casebook.

Recommended Consulting Interview Resources

Here are the resources we recommend to land your dream consulting job:

For help landing consulting interviews

• Resume Review & Editing : Transform your resume into one that will get you multiple consulting interviews

For help passing case interviews

• Comprehensive Case Interview Course (our #1 recommendation): The only resource you need. Whether you have no business background, rusty math skills, or are short on time, this step-by-step course will transform you into a top 1% caser that lands multiple consulting offers.
• Case Interview Coaching : Personalized, one-on-one coaching with a former Bain interviewer.
• Hacking the Case Interview Book   (available on Amazon): Perfect for beginners that are short on time. Transform yourself from a stressed-out case interview newbie to a confident intermediate in under a week. Some readers finish this book in a day and can already tackle tough cases.
• The Ultimate Case Interview Workbook (available on Amazon): Perfect for intermediates struggling with frameworks, case math, or generating business insights. No need to find a case partner – these drills, practice problems, and full-length cases can all be done by yourself.

For help passing consulting behavioral & fit interviews

• Behavioral & Fit Interview Course : Be prepared for 98% of behavioral and fit questions in just a few hours. We'll teach you exactly how to draft answers that will impress your interviewer.

Land Multiple Consulting Offers

Complete, step-by-step case interview course. 30,000+ happy customers.

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The Wharton MBA Case Interview Study Guide: Volume I Paperback – January 1, 1997

Practice Estimation Cases Practice estimation cases and sample solutions. Additional estimation cases without solutions are also presented.

• Print length 70 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Wetfeet.Com
• Publication date January 1, 1997
• Dimensions 8.75 x 0.25 x 11 inches
• ISBN-10 1582070547
• ISBN-13 978-1582070544
• See all details

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wetfeet.Com (January 1, 1997)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 70 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1582070547
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1582070544
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.8 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.75 x 0.25 x 11 inches

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How to prepare for consulting case interviews

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For those of you interested in consulting, summer is a great time to prep for the case interview process. Case interviews are unique to consulting and consulting adjacent industries. In the interview, you are presented with a typical business problem that the firm may encounter and asked to solve it in a fairly structured way. Learning this structure often takes some self studying as well as practice with partners. This year, some consulting firms have decided to conduct an early recruiting process with deadlines in mid-July for opportunities beginning Summer 2022 so now is the time to start practicing for the interviews that will follow. Here are my top five resources to help you nail the consulting case interview.

Resource #1: Penn Career Services Case Book

This case book was developed by a Wharton MBA and goes over all the basics of the consulting industry, what to expect in a case interview and how to tackle each section. It also includes a number of sample cases for you to use when practicing.

Resource #2: Management Consulted

We are so excited to announce our new partnership with Management Consulted. I have recommended their resources to many students over the years, and now Penn students have access to video tutorials, a large online case bank, and my personal favorite – over 10,000 math drills. This is a great resource to practice specific parts of the case that you may be struggling with. Another useful feature is you can sort their case bank by topic, industry and company.  We have a limited number of subscriptions available so sign up now to lock in your access!

Resource #3: Find Case Partners

Unlike other types of interviews where you may be able to practice on your own, you really need a partner in order to effectively practice for cases. Sign up to find other Penn undergraduate and graduate students to practice with this summer. We send out updated lists every week!

Resource #4: Vault Guide to Case Interviews

There seems be a Vault Guide for every topic and industry! This one is particularly helpful as it includes 50 sample case interviews, as well as brainteasers and market sizing questions. For those consulting adjacent industries that may incorporate some brainteasers instead of a formal case interview, this a helpful resource.

Resource #5: Case in Point

For those of you who may like a more comprehensive guide that walks you through the process from beginning to end, Case in Point is the best option. This guide has helped many students over the years and can serve as an excellent foundation for how to approach business problems.

Bonus Resource: Big Interview

We’ve spent a lot of time focusing on case interviews, but don’t forget about the behavioral interview! The number one piece of feedback we get from employers is that students don’t prepare enough for the behavioral while they are concentrating on the case. Big Interview is a resource you can use to record yourself answering questions. This is helpful especially since interviews in 2021 will still be virtual. They even have questions grouped by industry so make sure you try the consulting ones!

Penn Career Services is open this summer and available to help answer questions about your individual recruiting strategy, conduct mock interviews or review materials. Schedule an appointment to chat with your advisor!

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Best consulting casebook for beginners

Hi, what are your case book recommendations for someone looking to get into consulting?

Edit - i would be starting my MBA in July and just wanted to get myself a head-start since i dont have a background in consulting? What books or case books would you suggest to prep myself up? Thanks

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looking for relevant case book available to download (free)

I'm looking for casebooks that can be downloaded for free (Wharton consulting casebook 2018/2019 etc.).

I also would love for some audio/video solutions for Case Interviews.

Feel free to PM me for some preparation materials if you need more.

Please share with me. Thanks

HUGE list here (14 casebooks):

https://www.firmsconsulting.com/quarterly/case-interview-examples/

Just scroll down to item #12

You can download tens of very good casebooks in PDF here: https://masterthecase.com/case-interview-casebooks-top-mba//

 Hi! I believe you can find dozens of them by simply googling. 

Cheers, Sidi

all from 2010 and older.

Hi, feel free to text me for additional material

Hello! I like very much the books developped by Duke. 

You can reach to me for some praparational material and guides. 

Best, André

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Wharton Stories

Wharton hq case study: building an online community for admits.

Every year, newly admitted Wharton MBA students or “admits” travel to Philadelphia to spend three days at Spring Welcome Weekend. The weekend helps admits (plus their spouses and partners) decide if Wharton is where they feel the most at home. The weekend is also the first step the new MBA class takes to becoming unified, forming connections that will last for decades.

This year, that all changed. Like the rest of the world, the Wharton School was massively disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak. Students were sent home, the remainder of the academic year was moved online, and all in-person events were canceled — including Spring Welcome Weekend.

How could we still provide the same information, benefits, and connections, virtually, in a way that had never been done before? It became clear we needed to build an online community.

Choosing the Right Platform

Wharton’s Marketing Technology team, part of the larger Marketing and Communications group, got to work brainstorming ideas. With limited time, we wouldn’t be able to complete the technological build required for a Salesforce Community. A private Facebook Group was ruled out because it wouldn’t allow for topics to be broken into separate discussion areas or be accessible in all countries. One team member suggested Workplace by Facebook — a ready-made communications platform for teams with many of the familiar features of Facebook itself. With the same User Interface formulas (likes, comments, posts, groups, the News Feed) we knew our admitted students would have a short learning curve after logging on for the first time.

Here are a few other key features and how we used them:

• Groups: We created 13 official groups around common areas of interest, such as “Housing,” “Life in Philadelphia,” “Financial Aid,” and “MBA Announcements” were organized into their own Groups. Groups can be open to anyone or invite-only.
• News Feed: A running stream of posts from other members and Groups.
• Events: Allowed our team to schedule events with the option to RSVP.
• Resources and Knowledge Library: Links and articles relevant to admitted students.
• Directory: Admitted students could easily search and find other admits and connect with them.
• Chat: Admits and staff could chat privately with one another or in small groups.
• Insights: A dashboard for administrators to see the health of the community and confirm that important content was seen.

Breathing Life into the Community

From a technology perspective, we felt confident about the use of Workplace. But a successful online community is much more than a platform; it’s also about how you ensure that it’s a place where members want to be and contribute to. We added this human element in three ways:

• The “Introduce Yourself” group was a way for admitted students to get to know each other. Prior to the launch, our team modeled the behavior we wanted to see by sharing photos and personalities.
• A team of more than 60 student ambassadors called the Student Life Fellows (SLFs) were already prepared to lead the in-person Welcome Weekend. Now on Wharton HQ they were mobilized to support the three-weeks of programming online — jumping in to answer questions, make connections and introductions, and keep conversations going. A few SLFs hosted apartment tours to give admits a look at life in Philadelphia — something we could have never done with an in-person event!
• We compiled content from our own archives and third-party sources into a spreadsheet for staff and SLFs to easily access when questions from admits popped up.
• Blair Mannix, Director of Admissions, recorded a selfie video (see above) that was “pinned” to the News Feed as the first post members would see after joining. In this video, Blair pointed out ways to get in touch and encouraged new members to take high-priority actions — introduce yourself, join groups, and connect with each other.

Learning Point: Make sure you have people on standby ready to comment on and like posts from new members. Doing this makes new members feel welcome, and encourages them to comment and like other people’s posts, thereby amplifying the effect.

The Game Plan

To stay organized, we worked from one massive, continually updated Google Sheet which outlined Groups, Events, the staff and student teams, ideas to brainstorm, and engagement efforts. The spreadsheet also housed a communications flow and a variety of content calendars. We also created an internal Slack channel to surface questions and keep everyone updated.

Learning Point: It is important to think through and document the who, what, where, why, and when of the various ways that your team will engage with the community and its members. A simple spreadsheet is an excellent way to do this and to get everyone, literally, on the same page.

Launch & Results

Within 30 minutes of sending the first email, we could see accounts being claimed and activity in the “Introduce Yourself” group. By the end of the first day, nearly 60 percent of the invited accounts had been claimed. After one week, 75 percent of the accounts were activated.

The next several weeks were a rush of activity on all fronts. Staff, faculty, and current students held dozens of live video sessions and answered hundreds of questions. Admitted students connected with one another, current students, and staff, and kept coming back to learn more and to welcome new members of the community.

Over the course of three weeks:

• More than 250,000 connections were made in a community of about 1,500 people. A connection is any post, like, comment, or private message.
• The average Wharton HQ member made 178 connections.
• About 21,000 instant messages were sent on the platform.
• More than 100 virtual events were hosted by staff, current students, and even alumni for the first time.

This current reality requires us to invent solutions and engage with each other in new, virtual ways. It’s possible — and even rewarding — with the right platform, flexible processes, and full team support.

— Eric Greenberg, Sr. Director of Marketing Strategy and Operations, The Wharton School 

Posted: May 29, 2020

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Building out Wharton HQ did not come without its challenges. Here are four hurdles we encountered:

1. Domain Linking

While validating Workplace, we immediately ran into our first hurdle: domain linking. It turns out that someone had, years ago, created a Facebook Workplace for the wharton.upenn.edu domain. No one we contacted knew who or how to reclaim this dormant community. This forced us down the path of having to purchase a custom domain and the accompanying email accounts. We chose whartonmbawelcome.com, registered it, created our new Workplace, and called it “Wharton HQ.” 

Learning Point: Every Facebook Workplace is required to be associated with a domain that you can validate to prove ownership. The email you use to administer the Workplace must also use the same domain.

2. Email Addresses

Workplace is, by design, meant for use by an organization’s staff. Therefore, we could not invite people to the community using the email addresses we had on file because their email may already be tied to a Workplace which would then force them into their existing Workplace and not “Wharton HQ.”

Fortunately, Workplace provides an alternative. We added members to the community and generated “access codes” for them, which we then emailed to the invitees from our email platform, with explicit instructions to use the access code and not log in with an email.

Learning Point: Facebook Workplace allows members to log in with their email address when the email domain is associated with the Workplace domain. Otherwise, a member needs to login with an Access Code.

3. Video Streaming

We also tested live video options with staff. Facebook Workplace comes with the ability to stream live video using the standard Facebook Live option. But it also comes with the ability to integrate a variety of popular video conferencing apps, such as Zoom and BlueJeans. All videos are recorded and automatically made available to members who may have missed it the first time around. We made sure all hosts were comfortable with the technology prior to launch.

Learning Point: Each video streaming option comes with pros and cons. If you need to present slides or pass hosting between people then you will need to use an external video conferencing platform. But for someone presenting solo, or showing off housing options, Facebook Live works wonderfully.

4. Branding

As our team drafted emails to invite admitted students, it became clear that we didn’t have a consistent name for our Facebook Workplace. “Wharton MBA Virtual Welcome Weekend” was too clunky. “Wharton HQ” was selected to retain the Wharton identity as well as succinctly communicate the purpose of the platform. The visual branding opportunities were limited to what Facebook Workplace has built-in to the platform. To create a consistent look, we took advantage of every customizable feature — especially custom group cover photos. We even developed “badges” for users to add to their profile photos using the “Profile Frames” bot.

Learning Point: When introducing something new, it’s important to be open to change. What once made sense for an in-person event, may no longer work for a virtual one. 

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Wharton Consulting Club Casebook 2017

Related Papers

Kambiz Tabibzadeh

Muhammad Shaikh Hassan

Assessment of Qualitative

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Patricia (Patsy) Duff

Duff, P. (2019). Case study. In C. Chapelle (Ed.), Concise encyclopedia of applied linguistics. Wiley. ABSTRACT:This encyclopedia entry provides a methodological overview of case study research in applied linguistics, and especially in the area of second language teaching and learning. The entry begins with a definition and description of case study and references to other recent reviews of this qualitative approach to research. Examples of case study research are presented, together with a discussion of issues and options that arise in conducting and reporting on such research, such as ethical considerations, sampling or selection decisions, issues of generalizability, possibilities and challenges when conducting longitudinal research, and ways of analyzing and presenting data in single-case versus multiple-case studies. Next, the entry discusses ways of including case study in mixed-method research and cites an example from the field of study-abroad research. The entry concludes with some criteria for the assessment of effective and engaging case studies.

Rob Williams

The case study from chapter 6 in the class text book The Life Span Human Development for Helping Professionals describes the situation of a 4th grader named Alex. Recently Alex has experienced life changes in the form of a separation of his parents, an illness with is Mother, a reduction in his social activity, a change in caretakers, and a reduction in finances. All of this has created negative emotions and negative behavior for Alex. He is having behavioral problems at school and has made angry statements to his male teacher. According to Erikson's psychosocial developmental theory Alex is unable to work through stage 4 of the psychosocial stages of development. This stage is the identity versus inferiority crisis in which children begin to show independence and need acknowledgement for their accomplishments to gain self confidence. Alex is not currently receiving this type of acknowledgement, therefore he is experiencing emotional and social problems. Current research suggests that Alex and his siblings may need work group therapy to assist them with their current situation. Alex would benefit from this social activity in which he could discuss some of his emotions such as frustration, anger, fear, uncertainty, and a probable identity or role crisis.

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