Cornell Johnson Casebook: 20 Cases and How to Use Them

Author: Taylor Warfield, Former Bain Manager and interviewer

Last Updated: September 4, 2026

The Cornell Johnson casebook is a free practice resource from the Johnson Consulting Club whose most recent public edition holds 20 cases sorted into simple, medium, and complex tiers, plus a primer on how a case interview runs from prompt to recommendation. Below you'll get every case in that edition with its difficulty rating, an honest read on which ones are worth your practice hours, and the exact way to work through them.

Before reading on:

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Key Takeaways

The Cornell Johnson casebook is a solid mid-tier practice resource that earns a place in your rotation for its difficulty tiering and its three firm-sponsored cases, but it should never be the only casebook you use.

You can download the Cornell Johnson Casebook here: Johnson Casebook.pdf

The 2022-2023 edition is the newest version in wide circulation and runs past 200 pages

All 20 cases carry separate ratings for quant difficulty, analysis difficulty, and overall difficulty

Two cases came from L.E.K. and one from Bain, which makes those three the most realistic in the book

Coverage leans heavily on profitability and market entry, with no standalone market sizing or pricing case

The 15 page casing primer is unusually clear on the recommendation, which is where most candidates lose points

Treat it as one of six to eight casebooks rather than a complete prep plan

What Is the Cornell Johnson Casebook?

The Cornell Johnson casebook is a free practice guide written by the Johnson Consulting Club, the student consulting organization at Cornell's Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management in Ithaca. The 2022-2023 edition contains 20 practice cases with prompts, clarifying information, exhibits, worked math, brainstorming questions, and model recommendations. A 15 page primer at the front walks through the seven steps of a candidate-led case.

Second-year students write most of the cases. Sponsoring firms contribute the rest, and those carry the sponsor's name at the top of the case.

Like other MBA consulting casebooks, it exists so club members can give each other cases without writing new material every year. That origin explains both its strengths and its blind spots.

You can download the Cornell Johnson Casebook here: Johnson Casebook.pdf

What Is Inside the Cornell Johnson Casebook?

The book splits into two parts: a casing primer of roughly 15 pages and then 20 cases grouped by difficulty. There are no industry primers in the 2022-2023 edition, which is a change from earlier versions.

What does the casing primer cover?

The primer breaks a candidate-led case into seven steps and states the goal of each one. This is the most quietly useful part of the book, because it tells you what the interviewer is measuring at every stage.

Prompt: take notes, then repeat the situation back in your own words rather than word for word
Clarifying questions: three questions is the stated sweet spot, and they exist to learn, not to guess the answer
Structuring: state your hypothesis first, then build a decision tree that stays mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive
Exhibits: take 10 to 20 seconds to absorb the chart, then lead with insight instead of reading the axis labels
Quant: explain what you're calculating and why before you start, then attach a "so what" to every number
Brainstorming: use two structured buckets with at least three ideas each, and aim for five
Recommendation: recap, recommend, name a risk, give a mitigation, and close with a next step

That five-part recommendation format is worth memorizing. Having interviewed candidates at Bain, I can tell you the recommendation is where more otherwise-strong performances fall apart than anywhere else, usually because the candidate summarizes without ever committing to an answer.

What cases are in the Cornell Johnson casebook?

The table below lists all 20 cases in the 2022-2023 edition with the difficulty ratings printed in the book. The quant and analysis columns are rated separately, which lets you target a specific weakness instead of grabbing cases at random.

Case	Industry	Quant	Analysis	Overall
Rock Climbing	Leisure	Low	Medium	Simple
Bonnie & Blithe	Consumer and retail	Low	Medium	Simple
Trucking Co	Transportation	Medium	Low	Simple
Grocery Store Bakery (L.E.K.)	Consumer and retail	Medium	Low	Simple
Surgical Robot	Healthcare	Medium	Low	Simple
Pharma Co	Life sciences	Low	Medium	Simple
East Asia Cuisine	Restaurant	Medium	Low	Simple
Quick Package Co	Transportation	Medium	Medium	Medium
Bank Loan Operations	Financial services	Medium	Medium	Medium
Sophoro Fragrance	Consumer and retail	Medium	Medium	Medium
Benjamin Carpet	Manufacturing	Medium	Medium	Medium
Allergy Pharma (L.E.K.)	Life sciences	Low	High	Medium
JeffCo	Healthcare	Medium	Medium	Medium
Carbone Limoncello	Beverage	Medium	Medium	Medium
PayCo	Financial services	High	Medium	Complex
Thunder Arena	Gaming	High	Medium	Complex
ShoeCo (Bain)	Consumer and retail	Medium	High	Complex
Podcast to Podca$h	Technology	High	Medium	Complex
Ski & Board Wax in Colorado	Leisure	High	Medium	Complex
Pat's Pottery Studio	Leisure	Medium	High	Complex

Source: 2022-2023 Johnson Consulting Club Management Consulting Casebook and Guide, difficulty ratings as printed in the book's table of contents.

What case types does the Cornell Johnson casebook cover?

Profitability is the most represented type, showing up in five of the 20 cases, including one disguised as a digital transformation project. Market entry appears three times and investment or go-no-go decisions appear three times.

The gaps matter more than the coverage. There is no standalone market sizing case and no pricing case in the 2022-2023 edition, so you'll need another source for both.

A few cases are worth calling out for what they teach:

Bonnie & Blithe: a $1.4 billion direct-selling beauty company facing a 7% sales decline, framed as digital transformation but solved as a profitability case

Quick Package Co: an electric versus gas delivery fleet decision where the answer flips once vehicle life changes, which is excellent practice at staying flexible

Surgical Robot: a clean break-even case with a 20 year payback that forces you to say no to the client

Allergy Pharma: the L.E.K. strategy case, deliberately written long, with a scoring rubric attached so you can grade yourself

Which Cornell Johnson Casebook Edition Should You Use?

Use the 2022-2023 edition as your primary source, since it is the newest version in wide circulation and no public 2023-2024 or later edition has surfaced. Older editions are still worth raiding for the case types the newest one skips.

Edition	What's inside	Best use
2022-2023	20 cases in three difficulty tiers, 15 page casing primer, three firm-sponsored cases	Your main source and the one to work through in order
2021-2022	Similar case-led format, with behavioral questions paired to some cases	Extra reps once you've exhausted the newer edition
2020-2021	Roughly 30 cases rated 1 to 5, plus 12 industry primers covering retail through private equity	Market sizing, pricing, and competitive response cases the newer edition lacks
Big Red Case Book	The 1999 original, with short prompts and thin answer keys	Skip it, since the format no longer matches how firms interview

The 2020-2021 edition is the one people underrate. Its 12 industry primers give you the baseline vocabulary for airlines, oil and gas, utilities, and commercial banking, which is exactly the business context that separates a candidate who sounds like a consultant from one who sounds like a student.

Is the Cornell Johnson Casebook Worth Your Time?

Yes, but as a supporting resource rather than a centerpiece. It sits in the middle of the pack among school casebooks: better organized than most, less realistic than the strongest ones from schools whose clubs pull cases directly from firm interviews.

Here's what it does well:

Difficulty tiering: separate quant and analysis ratings let you attack a specific weakness instead of guessing

Interviewer notes: most cases include a "for interviewer only" line explaining the point of the case, which makes giving the case far easier

Sponsored cases: the two L.E.K. cases and the Bain case come with scoring rubrics that show how firms actually grade

Recommendation discipline: every case ends with the same five-part structure, so you drill the ending 20 times

And here's where it falls short:

Easy first tier: the seven simple cases are well below the difficulty of a real MBB first round

Missing case types: no market sizing, no pricing, and no digital or operations case in the newest edition

Uneven exhibits: several cases hand you data verbally instead of in a chart, which under-trains exhibit reading

Aging data: a few cases reference market conditions from several years back, so the industry context is stale even though the math still works

One more thing worth knowing: the casebook's own resource page recommends outside prep tools, several of which no longer exist in the form described. Verify anything you find in a student-written resource before you spend money on it.

Which Cornell Johnson Cases Should You Practice First?

Do not work through the book front to back. The tiers are ordered by difficulty, not by learning value, and the highest-value cases are buried in the middle and end.

Here's the sequence I'd give a candidate with eight weeks until first round:

Start with Trucking Co: a bare-bones profitability case with almost no clarifying information, which forces you to build structure without a safety net
Then Surgical Robot: clean break-even math and a recommendation that requires telling the client no
Then Grocery Store Bakery: the first L.E.K. case, with a rubric you can score yourself against
Then Quick Package Co: data delivered verbally and an answer that reverses on new information
Then Allergy Pharma: the hardest qualitative case in the book and the best test of business judgment
Finish with ShoeCo and PayCo: the two heaviest cases, saved for when your fundamentals are solid

Skip East Asia Cuisine unless you specifically want market sizing reps, since its setup depends on Ithaca's student population and the assumptions won't transfer. If your case interview math is shaky, run PayCo and Podcast to Podca$h twice rather than once.

How Should You Practice With the Cornell Johnson Casebook?

Practice live with a partner, not alone. Reading a case and nodding along at the answer key builds none of the skills an interview tests, and it is the single most common way candidates waste a casebook.

Find a partner and split roles: one person gives the case using the interviewer notes while the other solves it live
Time it honestly: run 30 to 40 minutes without pausing, since stopping to think breaks the pressure that makes practice useful
Take notes the way you would in the room: one page for structure, one for math, one for the recommendation
Ask for specific feedback: vague praise helps nobody, so ask your partner to name the weakest 60 seconds of your performance
Log the case: date, case name, type, industry, and every piece of feedback, so patterns in your weaknesses become visible
Redo the math cold: come back two days later and rerun only the calculations, out loud, on paper

Giving cases teaches you as much as receiving them. When you're holding the answer key and watching someone else structure, you start to see what a weak framework looks like from the interviewer's chair, and that perspective changes how you build your own.

Casebooks give you reps but not correction, which is the gap most candidates never close. If you want structured feedback on your actual performance, my interview coaching pairs you with a former Bain interviewer who tells you exactly what is costing you points.

What Are the Best Tips for Using the Cornell Johnson Casebook?

These six tips come from watching candidates use casebooks well and badly over the past decade.

Tip #1: Read the interviewer notes only after you solve

Every case in the book opens with a "for interviewer only" line that gives away the point of the case. Read it early and you've spoiled the exercise.

If you're solving rather than giving, have your partner cover that line before handing you the prompt.

Tip #2: Ignore the sample structures until you've built your own

The structures printed in the casebook are one reasonable answer, not the answer. Copying them trains you to recall frameworks instead of building them, which interviewers spot immediately.

Build your own tree first, then compare. The comparison is where the learning happens.

Tip #3: Say the "so what" out loud after every calculation

The casebook's primer makes this point explicitly and then most candidates ignore it. A number with no interpretation attached is worth almost nothing in a case.

Practice the habit deliberately: finish the math, pause, and state what it means for the client before your partner asks.

Tip #4: Use the sponsored cases as your benchmark

The two L.E.K. cases and the Bain case come with scoring rubrics that separate a weak answer from a strong one in concrete terms. Those rubrics are closer to real evaluation criteria than anything else in the book.

Score yourself against them honestly. Most candidates who think they're at "strong yes" are sitting at "maybe."

Tip #5: Fill the market sizing gap from another source

Sizing questions show up constantly in real interviews and the newest Cornell edition has no dedicated one. The 2020-2021 edition has two, and other school casebooks have more.

The Kellogg casebook is a strong companion here, since its coverage runs wider across case types.

Tip #6: Stop at 25 to 30 high-quality cases

The casebook's own closing advice says quality beats quantity, and it's right. Candidates who grind through 60 cases without review consistently perform worse than candidates who did 25 with real feedback.

Depth means redoing cases you fumbled, not collecting new ones. Once you're solving cleanly, more case interview examples add very little.

What Should You Pair the Cornell Johnson Casebook With?

Pair it with two things: a second casebook that covers market sizing and pricing, and a structured method for building frameworks from scratch. The casebook gives you cases, not a system for solving them.

Most candidates who plateau are missing the second piece. They have plenty of practice material and no repeatable way to break a new problem apart, so every case feels like starting over.

That's the difference between memorizing case interview frameworks and knowing how to build one. If you want the method rather than just the reps, my case interview course gets you there in about seven days.

Round out your rotation with three or four more school casebooks and at least one mock case interview with someone who has actually interviewed candidates. Peers can tell you whether your math was right, but only a former interviewer can tell you whether you'd have passed.

How Many Cornell Johnson MBAs Land Consulting Jobs?

Consulting hired 28% of employed Two-Year MBA graduates in Cornell Johnson's Class of 2025, making it the second largest destination after financial services. According to Cornell Johnson's employment report, consulting also paid the highest average base salary of any industry the class entered.

Metric	Class of 2025
Share entering consulting	28%
Average base salary in consulting	$171,625
Median base salary in consulting	$175,000
Consulting salary range	$100,000 to $193,000
Average signing bonus, all industries	$39,795
Offers within three months	85% of 239 job seekers

Source: Cornell Johnson Two-Year MBA employment report, Class of 2025.

McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Deloitte Consulting, EY-Parthenon, and Accenture all appear on Cornell Johnson's list of top hiring companies for that class. That mix tells you what to prepare for: a candidate-led case at Bain or BCG looks different from an interviewer-led case at McKinsey, and the casebook's primer only covers the candidate-led format.

The Cornell Johnson casebook will get you competent at solving cases, and competent is not the same as competitive when 28% of a class is chasing the same firms. Work through the 20 cases with a live partner, fill the market sizing and pricing gaps from a second book, and then get feedback from someone who has sat on the interviewer's side of the table.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Cornell Johnson casebook free?

Yes. The Johnson Consulting Club produces the casebook for its own members and never sells it, and copies circulate freely among business school consulting clubs. The club also hosts a free interactive sample case on its website that you can work through without downloading anything.

How many cases are in the Cornell Johnson casebook?

The 2022-2023 edition contains 20 full practice cases split into seven simple, seven medium, and six complex. Each case includes a prompt, clarifying information, a sample structure, exhibits, math with worked solutions, a brainstorming question, and a model recommendation. The 2020-2021 edition ran longer at roughly 30 cases plus 12 industry primers.

Where can you get the Cornell Johnson casebook?

Current Johnson students get it directly from the Johnson Consulting Club. Everyone else typically gets a copy through a friend at an MBA program, since consulting clubs trade casebooks with each other every recruiting season. The club also publishes a free sample case on its public website.

Is the Cornell Johnson casebook good for McKinsey, BCG, and Bain interviews?

It is useful but not sufficient on its own. The three firm-sponsored cases and the complex tier hold up well, and the recommendation format matches what interviewers expect. The simple tier is easier than a real MBB case interview, so treat those cases as warm-ups rather than a benchmark.

How many casebooks should you use to prepare?

Six to eight casebooks is the right range for most candidates. Fewer than that leaves gaps in case types and industries, and more than that produces repetition without new learning. Depth matters more than breadth, so 30 cases done carefully with feedback beats 80 cases rushed through.

Do you need to be a Cornell student to use the casebook?

No. The 2022-2023 edition explicitly welcomes students from other Cornell programs and other universities entirely. Nothing in the cases is specific to Johnson, apart from one case set in Ithaca that uses the local student population for its market sizing.

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