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Which are the best Business School Case Books to use to practice?
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Hi there,
Great question. After extensively reviewing the market for casebook materials, I believe the best options are:
- Darden School of Business Casebooks: These casebooks feature some of the best cases available along with excellent preparation material.
- Peter K Casebooks: These include real MBB cases. Peter K publishes a new casebook approximately every year. Currently, there are three editions available (2020, 2021, and 2023).
Let me know if you would like to have access to these casebooks.
Thanks,
Nilay
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Hi! Usually most of the best case books come from the most known business schools (e.g., Wharton, LBS). Happy to share some of them with you, write me in private :)
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Hi,
Whatever casebook you decide to use, remember that it should only be used to select interesting case prompts. Do not rely solely on the solutions offered in these books, as they are often weak. These solutions might lead to the "right answer," but they frequently lack coherent logic. Very often, these solutions just magically suggest the “right areas to explore” and the “right information” to ask for, mapping out an ideal path of guessing rather than a repeatable methodology grounded in rigorous, top-down logic.
A case interview is a tool for the interviewer to understand your thinking and assess whether you use a rigorous, logical, and repeatable process to get to the core of an issue and address the client's question or problem.
Do not treat a case interview like an oral exam where you only care about getting the “correct” answer, because this is the LEAST important thing for an MBB interviewer. Many cases have multiple possible answers by design, a nuance often missed in the unrealistic “blueprint solutions” found in case collections or business school casebooks.
It's about how you develop an approach, whether it is grounded in logic or just memorized frameworks, and whether you can follow through on your logic while effectively communicating with the interviewer as if they were a client.
If you learn to do this, you won't have any problems securing multiple MBB offers. However, if you do what most people do—learn casebook frameworks or specific approaches for all sorts of “case types” and hope not to get an “unconventional” case question—you will never feel stable because your approach is not stable.
Good luck with your preparation.
Cheers, Sidi
_______________________
Dr. Sidi Koné
(🚀 Ex BCG & McKinsey Sr. Project Manager, now helping high potential individuals join the world's top Strategy Consulting firms (McKinsey | BCG | Bain))
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The ones from the top schools and as recent as possible. I wouldn't focus on just one but sample across several of them. Reach out and I'm happy to share a couple, no strings attached.
And if you're practicing for interviews, you might also find this helpful:
Cheatsheet: The Must-Know Consulting Terms for Interviews
Best,
Cristian
(edited)
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Hi there,
Please reach out - happy to share some!
Cheers,
Florian
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My opinion is to pick any case book - but solve the cases properly with your own depth and flair. Don't focus on the exact solution in the case book and instead focus on improving your casing skills.
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My suggestions arer: Darden, Stern, Columbia, Ross.
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Hi there,
The ones I like are: Columbia, Darden, Esade, Fuqua, Kellog, LBS, McCombs, Michigan, Ross, Sloan, and especially Yale.
Best,
Hagen
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Take cases from several case books. Each one have different case styles (ones more focused on math, others are better on structure).
Best,
Alberto
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