Those who got MBB offers: How many live cases did you do?

247

103.7

6-8 live 15ish - read through on my own

~25 prior to final round

I would say that knowing the procedure for how to solve a case and what it is trying to show the interviewer is more important than the raw number of cases you do. You need to know how to interpret information on the fly and how that impacts the case (the company or situation you are analyzing).

When I recruited, I did between 20 and 30. 0 solo cases. I think more important was that I prepped with over 10 different people so got to see a lot of different approaches and copied bit and pieces that I liked as I practiced.

The magic number is around 50 practice cases over Skype or face-to-face, in my opinion reading cases yourself doesn't work. I think I did 50 practice cases and a total of 20 real interviews. Find a diverse group of practice partners and continue on with the most skilled. Practising cases is by far the most important aspect of the prep as it will underline what areas you need to improve. Consultingcase101.com has a really good free site to find practice partners. Good luck!

Did 100+, gave about 80. The more you do, the better naturally. Can you do 15, 20 and pass? Yes - but you need to be either naturally good or get lucky with type of case you get. Also, the more you practice, the better the chance you will get a case which somewhat resembles a case you already did - which might help (know people whom that happened to).

Here are couple of tips:

• You may start with existing frameworks, but if you go in an interview (especially BCG) and recite Victor Cheng, you are at best getting through first round. You need to come up with what works for you and the interviewer has to feel that you are not just reciting a framework. Marry the framework to the case.
• Take notes after every case. Note down anything that was interesting. It took me about 5-45 minutes depending on a case, to that down. But it will help you out. What you need to do is to test yourself on remembering these insights.
• Practice with people who are better then you! At least with few of them. You need such people to give you feedback.
• Actively ask people to give you detailed feedback - some partners will hold back, but you don't want them to go easy on you at this stage. Ask them to be critical and hard, both during the case and with feedback (naturally not with your very first case).
• Set a hard time limit. Cases over Skype tend to run long - 40m to over an hour. You will get 20 to 30 mins in a real scenario (with exceptions naturally).
• In case you don't have partners, take casebooks, read the beginning of the case and practice the intro part (restate, clarify!, take a moment to come up with structure, turn the paper to the imaginary interviewer and walk him through it). Then you can read the case, do the math sections or - if there is a question, try to answer it and at the end, summarize.

Lastly - have fun :). If the interviewer sees that you enjoy yourself - its a huge bonus.

Best of luck!

After reading Crack the Case and Case in Point, I did: 11 on my own 3 live cases with three connections that are senior execs at MBB

I am naturally very analytically minded so catching on was relatively easy and I believe I lucked out the type of cases I got in the rounds.

I did around 30 and gave about 25, which IMO is just as important. This was in the span of 3 weeks. The vast majority of my classmates who got MBB were in the 15-40 range. I know a few who did 50+. At that point, most people have a tendency to burn-out or become robotic. When you're doing interview prep, DON'T FORGET FIT. My case partners and I typically gave each other 1-2 behavioral questions before every case. If you can develop rapport with the interviewer during the fit portion, you're more likely to get the benefit of the doubt if you have a minor stumble during the case.

People complicate the whole case methodology and case interviews. Have a webinar from McKinsey alums when went through process, and it specifically says no methodology. #s don't mean much IMO, people suggested 20+ when in reality it's all about knowing the process. Practiced with MBA grads who did over 200+ and they sucked.

MBB process is about evaluating your mental horsepower: ability to synthesize info quickly, be decisive and execute confidently. You can't teach that shit.

1. Seriously. I didn't have time to do any more.

Do I recommend that approach? No, of course not, would have been safer to prep more. But like the above poster says, what the case interview process is designed to test is something that can't really be taught. You can practice the skills, but you can't fake the mental horsepower.

Personally, I did about 5 live case my junior year and got to final rounds but did not get an internship offer. I didn't start practicing again until fall of senior year and then did maybe 10 live cases. I did get an offer and will be starting at MBB in September.

I think the most important thing is to be comfortable the case interview. For me, it just took time for the process to sink into my brain and become natural. There was over a year between the time I did my first practice case and the time I got my offer. Obviously this is an extreme example, but my point is that it's more about time and quality than quantity of cases.