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Experiences with McKinsey Solve?

I recently took McKinsey solve for pre MBA Early Access. My experiences below and would love to hear experiences from others:

1. I didn't need to complete it before internship recruiting though I asked for an extension since I am in the middle of a M&A event for work so felt obligated to take it
2. I had read up about it, looked through the Ecosystem reviews etc. Though did not take any sample simulations etc.
3. I had a template I had created to solve it or essentially focus on the most important factors for ecosystem
4. I was using 2 laptops and using one for data entry; I recognized the producers quickly along with the ideal ecosystem using the top 3 factors. Finding the animals took me a long time but I filtered effectively I thought
5. I was running short on time at the end so guessed 1 or two species based on my table. It was still filtered using my conditions but maybe not the most accurate analysis
6. I actually found the red rocks piece of it fairly straightforward. I used my laptop and entered the data points I thought to be important. I actually read the questions before delving into the tables etc. 
7. My organization could have been better wrt providing what I was looking at, data points used. Not great labeling etc but the important highlights
8. I used Excel and am a fairly proficient Excel user so found the questions to be relatively easy to solve once you knew exactly what was being asked
9. I was short on time but finished all questions, I may have misunderstood a couple but ⅔ minutes per case question is challenging especially with the amount of data thrown your way
10. The online calculator is terrible and I tried to use it as little as possible . Maybe that is a mistake?

What were other people's thoughts? 

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Top answer
on Apr 22, 2024
#1 rated McKinsey Coach

Overall, it sounds like you did well. Congrats!

And I hope you'll hear back soon. 

With most offices, they will review the results of the test together with the CV, CL and the referral (if applicable) and that can take a few days. 

Best,
Cristian

Pedro
Coach
on Apr 24, 2024
Bain | EY-Parthenon | Former Principal | 1.5h session | 30% discount 1st session

On point 10. that is the usual feedback, that the online calculator is not very good.

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