Author: Taylor Warfield, Former Bain Manager and interviewer

Last Updated: September 14, 2026

 

The McCombs casebook is a free 132-page PDF from the Graduate Consulting Group at UT Austin's McCombs School of Business, and it holds 16 practice cases rated for both quantitative and qualitative difficulty. This guide breaks down every case inside, shows you where to download it, and tells you which parts still earn your prep time and which parts are now out of date.

 

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Key Takeaways

 

The McCombs casebook is a solid free source of practice reps and one of the better scoring rubrics in any casebook, but its 2018 vintage means you should use it for drilling rather than as a guide to how firms interview today.

You can download the casebook here: McCombs casebook.pdf

 

• Free 132-page PDF from the McCombs Graduate Consulting Group, holding 16 full cases

 

• Every case carries a 1 to 5 rating on both quantitative and qualitative difficulty, so you can pick your level

 

• Seven of the 16 cases are profitability cases, so you will need other sources for market entry and merger reps

 

• Twelve cases are interviewee-led and four are interviewer-led, which covers both major firm formats

 

• The six-dimension feedback rubric is the most valuable part and doubles as a self-scoring tool

 

• The eight firm profiles are dated, so treat every interview format detail in them as history

 

What Is the McCombs Casebook?

 

The McCombs casebook is a free case interview prep PDF published by the Graduate Consulting Group at the University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business. The circulating edition runs 132 pages and holds 16 practice cases, profiles of eight consulting firms, and a six-dimension scoring rubric for giving feedback.

 

The Graduate Consulting Group is a student-run organization whose stated mission is helping McCombs students break into consulting. Second-year MBAs who had just finished recruiting wrote most of the cases, with the rest pulled from outside sources.

 

That authorship cuts both ways. The people writing these cases had just sat through real interviews, which keeps the mechanics honest, but they were students rather than interviewers, so the sample answers are not always the answers a partner would want to hear.

 

Where Can You Download the McCombs Casebook?

 

You can download the McCombs casebook free below, with no signup and no email required. The file is the complete 132-page PDF, including the firm profiles, the rubric, and all 16 cases with their exhibits.

 

Here is where you can download the McCombs casebook: McCombs 2018.pdf

 

The Graduate Consulting Group has not released a newer public edition since this one, so this is the version circulating on every case prep site. Dozens of other MBA consulting casebooks are also free to download, and pulling from several schools gives you a wider mix of case types than any single book can.

 

What Cases Are in the McCombs Casebook?

 

The McCombs casebook holds 16 cases spanning eight case types, each rated from 1 to 5 on quantitative difficulty and separately from 1 to 5 on qualitative difficulty. That dual rating is unusual and useful: it lets you pick a case that stresses your math without also stressing your structuring, or the reverse.

 

Case	Type	Quant	Qual	Style
1. Mattel	Profitability	2	2	Interviewee-led
2. Regional Electric Utility	Profitability	3	2	Interviewee-led
3. Grocery Deli Company	Profitability	2	2	Interviewee-led
4. Airline Food	Investment	4	2	Interviewee-led
5. Chem Co.	Profitability	2	3	Interviewer-led
6. LaLa Media	Profitability	3	3	Interviewer-led
7. Sugar Cereal	Strategy evaluation	2	4	Interviewee-led
8. Travel IT Disruption	Industry evaluation	1	5	Interviewee-led
9. Admedi Co.	Growth evaluation	3	4	Interviewee-led
10. S.A. Shipping	Operations evaluation	3	3	Interviewer-led
11. JCL Carpets	Investment	3	4	Interviewer-led
12. Bombardier CS300	Profitability	3	5	Interviewee-led
13. Polyethylene Resin	Pricing	2	4	Interviewee-led
14. I-35 IHOP	Valuation	5	4	Interviewee-led
15. MIMO Technology	Valuation	5	5	Interviewee-led
16. Fast Food Loyalty	Profitability	2	4	Interviewee-led

 

Source: McCombs Graduate Consulting Group casebook, case index. A few individual case pages inside the PDF label their own type or difficulty slightly differently from the master index, so trust the index when the two disagree.

 

The distribution tells you what this casebook is for. Seven of the 16 cases are profitability cases, which makes McCombs a strong choice if profit trees are your weak spot and a poor one if you already solve them in your sleep.

 

The editors set a clear calibration rule: cases averaging 2 to 4 across the two difficulty scores mirror a first round, while cases averaging 3.5 to 5 mirror a second round. By that rule only five cases qualify as second-round practice: Admedi Co., JCL Carpets, Bombardier CS300, I-35 IHOP, and MIMO Technology.

 

The two hardest quantitative cases are I-35 IHOP and MIMO Technology, both rated 5 out of 5. Each requires you to build a full valuation off a perpetuity calculation, which is heavier math than almost any other casebook asks for.

 

I-35 IHOP is worth calling out for another reason. The case values a restaurant sitting at a named Austin intersection, then pivots to valuing the land underneath it for an apartment developer, which is a creative twist you rarely see in student-written cases.

 

The gaps matter too. There is no market entry case, no merger case, and no standalone market sizing case, though estimation shows up inside the Airline Food and MIMO cases.

 

What Else Is Inside the McCombs Casebook?

 

Two sections sit in front of the cases: a set of one-page profiles covering eight consulting firms, and a standardized feedback rubric. The firm profiles were the reason this casebook earned a reputation as a reference document rather than just a case bank.

 

Each profile covers the firm's staffing model, generalist or specialist track, office count, first and second round interview format, and MBA career progression. The eight firms profiled are:

 

• Kearney, listed under its former A.T. Kearney name

 

• Bain & Company

 

• Boston Consulting Group

 

• Deloitte Consulting, Strategy and Operations

 

• McKinsey & Company

 

• KPMG Strategy

 

• PricewaterhouseCoopers

 

• Strategy&

 

Read these for context, not for planning. Headcounts, office counts, and round structures have all moved since the casebook was written, and none of the profiles mention the online assessments and one-way video interviews that now sit in front of most first rounds. Check the official McKinsey and BCG interview pages for current formats instead.

 

How Does the McCombs Feedback Rubric Work?

 

The rubric scores a candidate from 1 to 5 across six dimensions, for a total score between 6 and 30. It is the most useful page in the book, because it converts vague feedback like "that felt shaky" into a number you can track case over case.

 

The six dimensions are structure, written notes, arithmetic, communication, insights, and recommendation. Each one comes with written anchors at the 1, 3, and 5 levels, so your partner is not guessing what a 4 means.

 

The anchors are sharper than most casebooks manage. A 5 on communication is defined as answer-first delivery in a client-friendly manner, and a 5 on recommendation requires leading with the answer, then synthesizing findings, risks, and next steps.

 

Including written notes as its own scored dimension is the smartest choice the editors made. Sloppy notes cause more math errors and more lost threads than almost anything else, and virtually no other casebook grades them.

 

Is the McCombs Casebook Good for Case Interview Prep?

 

Yes, but as a supplement rather than a primary source. The cases are clean, the interviewer guidance is specific, and the difficulty ratings let you target a weakness precisely, which puts it ahead of most casebooks of similar size.

 

Where it falls behind is volume and recency. Sixteen cases will not carry you through a full prep cycle, and newer editions from other schools better reflect how firms run cases now.

 

The Booth casebook holds more than 40 cases and a stronger behavioral section, so if you can only work through one, start there and use McCombs for targeted profitability and valuation reps.

 

The cases themselves have held up better than the surrounding material. Consulting was the top destination for the McCombs Full-Time MBA Class of 2025 at 28% of graduates, so the school's candidates are still beating the same interviews these cases were written to simulate.

 

Having coached hundreds of candidates one on one, I can tell you the single biggest predictor of who converts is not how many cases they did. It is whether they scored themselves honestly afterward, which is exactly what the McCombs rubric is built for.

 

How Should You Use the McCombs Casebook?

 

Use the difficulty ratings to sequence your practice instead of working front to back. Starting at case 1 and grinding to case 16 wastes the best feature the book has.

 

Here is the sequence I give the candidates I coach:

 

1. Start at 2/2: run Mattel and Grocery Deli Company first, since both are rated 2 on each scale and give you clean profit trees without heavy math
   
   
2. Add math pressure: move to Airline Food at 4 on quantitative difficulty, which forces an estimation before the payback calculation
   
   
3. Add ambiguity: run Travel IT Disruption, rated 1 on math and 5 on qualitative difficulty, which has almost no numbers and tests structure alone
   
   
4. Score every case: use the six-dimension rubric immediately after each one and write the six numbers down
   
   
5. Finish with the hardest: save I-35 IHOP and MIMO Technology for the week before your final round, since both mirror second-round difficulty

 

Four of the 16 cases are interviewer-led, meaning the case is broken into discrete questions the interviewer asks in order. Those four are the ones to use when you practice case interviews by yourself, because you can answer one question, check yourself, and move on without spoiling what comes next.

 

The other 12 are interviewee-led and need a partner. If you are running one as the interviewer in a mock case interview, read the full case twice before you start, since several of them hide the key exhibit behind a "do not show" instruction you have to read out loud instead.

 

What Are the McCombs Casebook's Biggest Weaknesses?

 

The McCombs casebook has four real weaknesses, and knowing them up front stops you from prepping the wrong way. None of them make the book useless, but each one needs a second source to cover.

 

• No behavioral section: the book covers cases only, so you get nothing on the consulting fit interview that makes up half of most first rounds

 

• No math drills: there are no standalone calculation exercises, so you have to build speed elsewhere before the 5 out of 5 quantitative cases become useful

 

• Case-type skew: with 7 profitability cases and zero market entry or merger cases, whole archetypes go untouched

 

• Student-written answers: several recommendations reach for a canned structure rather than a custom one, which is the opposite of what interviewers reward now

 

That last point is the one that costs candidates offers. Firms now screen against memorized templates, so copying a sample framework out of any casebook trains the exact habit that gets flagged in the room.

 

If you want to learn how to build a custom, MECE structure for any problem instead of reciting four buckets, my case interview course walks you through the method in as little as 7 days.

 

Tips to Get the Most Out of the McCombs Casebook

 

Tip #1: Pick cases by rating, not by page order

 

The dual difficulty scores exist so you can isolate a weakness. If your math is fine but your structures wander, run the 1/5 and 2/4 cases and skip the quantitative monsters entirely.

 

Tip #2: Score all six rubric dimensions every single time

 

Write down six numbers after every case and keep them in one place. Ten cases in, you will see one dimension that never moves, and that dimension is what your prep should actually be about.

 

Tip #3: Do the arithmetic by hand before you read the solution

 

Several cases print the full calculation on the following page, which makes it tempting to read rather than solve. Cover it, run the case interview math out loud, and only then check your number.

 

Tip #4: Rewrite the weak sample recommendations

 

When a sample recommendation is just a list of options with no verdict, rewrite it as an answer-first synthesis with a risk and a next step. That rewrite is better practice than the case itself.

 

Tip #5: Fill the gaps with other casebooks

 

Sixteen cases across eight types leaves market entry and merger work uncovered. Work through case interview examples from newer casebooks so no archetype catches you cold.

 

Tip #6: Get feedback from someone who has actually interviewed candidates

 

A peer can score you against the rubric, but they cannot tell you where a real interviewer would have stopped listening. My interview coaching pairs you with a former Bain interviewer who can.

 

The McCombs casebook is a sharp, well-organized set of 16 cases with the best scoring rubric of any free casebook its size, and it works best when you treat the ratings as a map and the firm profiles as history. Download it, run three cases sequenced by difficulty this week, and score all six rubric dimensions after each one.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

Is the McCombs casebook free?

 

Yes. The McCombs casebook is published by the Graduate Consulting Group at the McCombs School of Business and shared as a free PDF. You can download the casebook here: McCombs casebook.pdf

 

How many cases are in the McCombs casebook?

 

There are 16 full practice cases. Seven are profitability cases, two are investment cases, two are valuation cases, and the remaining five cover pricing, operations, growth, industry evaluation, and strategy evaluation.

 

What year is the McCombs casebook from?

 

The widely circulated edition covers the 2017 to 2018 recruiting year and is usually filed as the 2018 casebook. The Graduate Consulting Group has not published a newer public edition, so this remains the version candidates use.

 

Is the McCombs casebook good for MBB interviews?

 

It is useful for reps but not for style. The cases build the same structuring and math skills that McKinsey, BCG, and Bain test, and 12 of the 16 are interviewee-led like a Bain or BCG case. The firm profiles describing interview formats are now out of date, so ignore that section and use official firm materials instead.

 

Do you need to attend McCombs to use the casebook?

 

No. The casebook circulates publicly and anyone preparing for consulting interviews can practice with it. Nothing in the cases is specific to McCombs students, so undergraduates, experienced hires, and career changers get the same value from it.

 

How does the McCombs casebook compare to other MBA casebooks?

 

It sits in the middle of the pack. The difficulty ratings and scoring rubric are better than most casebooks offer, but 16 cases is a small library and the 2018 vintage puts it behind newer editions from Darden, Tuck, and Wharton. Use it as a supplement rather than your primary source.

 

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