Author: Taylor Warfield, Former Bain Manager and interviewer

Last Updated: September 25, 2026

 

The Tuck casebook is a free collection of practice cases published by the Tuck Consulting Club at Dartmouth, and the current 2024 edition holds 12 cases across 8 industries, half of them written by real consulting firms and professional case writers. This guide covers what is inside the book, where to download it, which cases to do first, and how to practice with it so your scores actually move.

 

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Key Takeaways

 

The Tuck casebook is one of the strongest free casebooks available because half its cases were contributed by consulting firms rather than students, but it is small, so you should pair it with a larger case library.

You can download the casebook here: Tuck casebook.pdf

 

• The 2024 Tuck Consulting Club casebook holds 12 full cases across roughly 142 pages

 

• Six of the 12 cases were contributed by firms including LEK, EY-Parthenon, and Innosight

 

• Cases are graded easy to expert using ski trail symbols, since Dartmouth owns its own ski resort

 

• Two cases are built around generative AI, which almost no other free casebook covers

 

• Every case page carries a fit question and a delivery style, so you rehearse behavioral answers too

 

• Volume is the weakness, so use Tuck for quality reps and a bigger book for raw practice

 

What Is the Tuck Casebook?

 

The Tuck casebook is a free PDF of practice case interviews assembled by the Tuck Consulting Club at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. The 2024 edition runs roughly 142 pages and contains 12 full cases with prompts, exhibits, sample structures, and interviewer guidance, plus sections on recruiting advice, fit preparation, and core business concepts.

 

Consulting clubs at top MBA programs build these books so members can rehearse realistic material before recruiting season. The Tuck Consulting Club is one of the largest student organizations on campus, and its casebook now circulates far beyond Hanover.

 

The reason it carries weight is placement. Consulting was the single largest destination for the Tuck class of 2025, taking 41% of graduates at a median base salary of $190,000, according to Tuck's 2025 employment report. A book written by students who just cleared that bar tends to reflect what firms actually asked.

 

Is the Tuck Casebook Free, and Where Do You Download It?

 

Yes, the Tuck casebook is free. You can download the casebook here: Tuck casebook.pdf

 

Keep in mind the book is student-created and copyrighted by the Tuck Consulting Club, which asks that it not be redistributed outside the club. Treat it as a practice resource rather than an official firm publication.

 

Most search results for this casebook point to document sharing sites that paywall the download or force a signup. You do not need any of those, and you also do not need to hunt down each edition separately, since the major MBA consulting casebooks are available side by side for direct download.

 

What Is Inside the Tuck Casebook?

 

The 2024 Tuck casebook is organized into four sections: an opening on what aspiring consultants need to know, a fit interview guide, a business concepts primer, and the case library. The cases occupy the last 120 pages, and the front matter runs about 15.

 

How many cases are in the Tuck casebook?

 

The 2024 edition contains 12 cases. Five are new cases written by the T'24 and T'25 classes, six were contributed by consulting firms and professional case writers, and one is a refreshed favorite carried over from an earlier edition.

 

That firm involvement is what makes this book unusual. Most free casebooks are entirely student-written, so the cases drift toward what students think interviews look like rather than what they are.

 

Case	Industry	Case type	Written by
Aftermarket Auto Parts	Automotive	Growth strategy	LEK
Craft Co	Retail and CPG	Growth strategy	EY-Parthenon
Hanover Health	Healthcare	Mergers and acquisitions	Tuck students, Bain style
Kitchen Co	Retail and CPG	Growth strategy	Innosight
Luxury Landscaping	Engineering and construction	Mergers and acquisitions	IGS
Nutters of Savile Row	Retail and CPG	Operations	Tuck students, refreshed
OldSchool	Government and public sector	Profitability	Tuck students, McKinsey style
Pediatric Hearing Aids	Healthcare	Profitability	Professional case writer
PowerStride Sportswear	Retail and CPG	Growth strategy	Professional case writer
Snow Big Deal	Transportation and logistics	Opportunity assessment	Tuck students
SwitchDeck Motors	Automotive	Market entry	Tuck students
Tuck Air II	Airline	Opportunity assessment	Tuck students

 

The spread is heavier on growth strategy and lighter on classic profitability cases than most casebooks. Only OldSchool and Pediatric Hearing Aids are pure profitability problems, so do not use this book alone if profit trees are your weak spot.

 

How does the Tuck difficulty system work?

 

Tuck grades its cases with ski trail symbols rather than words, running from easy to intermediate to difficult to expert only. The club explains the choice plainly: Dartmouth is one of only two colleges in the country that owns its own ski resort.

 

The book also pairs those grades with a calendar. It tells first years to run easy cases immediately after finishing the club curriculum, move to intermediate cases with second years before they leave for the summer, save expert only pressure cases for the end of the fall, and then taper back to intermediate cases in early January so they walk into interviews rested.

 

That tapering advice is the most underrated line in the book. Having coached hundreds of candidates one on one, the ones who peak too early and then grind through January almost always show up flat on interview day.

 

What do the non-case sections cover?

 

The front matter is short but denser than most casebooks. It opens with three casing principles, then moves through fit preparation, then a business concepts primer.

 

• Casing principles: preparation is a marathon rather than a sprint, do not measure yourself against other candidates, and find the structuring style that suits you

 

• Fit preparation: a five month recruiting calendar, roughly 40 common behavioral questions split into personal and consulting categories, and a dedicated page on the McKinsey PEI

 

• Business concepts: definitions for EBITDA, CAGR, contribution margin, COGS, SG&A, share of wallet, and the rest of the vocabulary that shows up inside prompts

 

• Estimation shortcuts: a US population figure of roughly 320 million with about 4 million people per age year, which the Pediatric Hearing Aids case then uses directly

 

• Risk banks: pre-built risk lists for mergers, market entry, and healthcare research, each paired with mitigating actions

 

The fit section makes a claim worth taking seriously. Tuck tells its members that firms weigh fit and case performance roughly evenly, and that starting fit preparation too late is the single most common mistake candidates make.

 

Which Tuck Cases Should You Do First?

 

Pick your first Tuck case by your weakest skill, not by page order. With only 12 cases in the book, working sequentially wastes reps on skills you already have.

 

Your weak spot	Start with	Why it works
Market sizing	Luxury Landscaping	Builds a full Los Angeles County market from population down to project value, with four stacked assumptions
Exhibit reading	Hanover Health	Four exhibits in sequence covering revenue trends, cost breakdowns, market share, and a customer survey
Breakeven math	Tuck Air II	Compares two WiFi receivers on payback period against a strict three year rule
Investment decisions	OldSchool	Runs a perpetuity valuation against a $200,000 upfront cost to reach a clear yes or no
Brainstorming	Aftermarket Auto Parts	Opens cold with no framework and pushes straight into generating growth avenues
Operations	Nutters of Savile Row	Bottleneck math across two parallel production lines with shared staff

 

Luxury Landscaping is the standout for estimation practice because it forces you to justify every assumption rather than pick round numbers. If your market sizing falls apart under questioning, that case will expose it in about four minutes.

 

Tuck Air II and OldSchool are the two cleanest math cases in the book. One is a straight breakeven analysis across two equipment options, and the other ends in a perpetuity calculation that most candidates fumble under time pressure.

 

Which Tuck Casebook Edition Should You Use?

 

Use the 2024 edition. It has the firm-sponsored cases, the current case types, and the only two generative AI cases Tuck has published. Older editions are worth opening only after you exhaust it.

 

Edition	What it includes	Best for
2024	12 cases, six firm-sponsored, two generative AI cases, fit guide, concepts primer	Almost every candidate
2017 to 2018	12 cases including the original Tuck Air, Museum of Fine Arts, and Zika Virus Vaccine	Extra reps once you finish 2024
2009 to 2010	Older case set written before exhibit-heavy interviews became standard	Skip unless you want raw volume
1999 to 2000	A framework guide with economics and finance primers rather than a modern case library	Historical reference only

 

The 2017 to 2018 edition is still the version most people stumble onto, because it has been mirrored across document sharing sites for years. It holds up as practice material, and the Museum of Fine Arts case in particular is a strong non-profit revenue problem with lifetime value math that few casebooks attempt.

 

One case bridges the two editions. Nutters of Savile Row was written by two T'17 students and refreshed for 2024, so the 2024 version has cleaner exhibits and tighter interviewer guidance for the same underlying operations case.

 

How Should You Use the Tuck Casebook to Prepare?

 

Work through the cases live with a partner, pick them by weakness, and reflect after every one. Reading the solutions silently is the fastest way to feel productive while learning almost nothing.

 

1. Read the concepts primer first: it takes ten minutes and defines the vocabulary the prompts assume you know
   
   
2. Pick a case by weakness: use the table above rather than starting at page one
   
   
3. Have your partner withhold exhibits: every case tells the interviewer exactly when to hand each one over, so the timing is built in
   
   
4. Match the delivery style: each case is tagged interviewee-led or interviewer-led, and you should practice the format your target firm uses
   
   
5. Answer the fit question: every case page opens with one, and skipping it wastes free behavioral reps
   
   
6. Do the math by hand: build real speed instead of reaching for a calculator you will not have
   
   
7. Write a three line reflection: note what you missed, where you stalled, and what you will do differently next time

 

The delivery style tags matter more than candidates realize. OldSchool and PowerStride Sportswear are both built as interviewer-led cases, which mirrors how McKinsey runs its rounds, while the other ten hand you the wheel.

 

When you cannot find a partner, the interviewer guidance is detailed enough that you can still practice case interviews by yourself by covering the answer column as you go. Budget more live reps before your real rounds, though, because solo practice will not catch how you sound.

 

A peer can tell you that your structure felt messy. They usually cannot tell you why, which is where my interview coaching with a former Bain interviewer picks up the habits a casebook alone will never surface.

 

What Are the Pros and Cons of the Tuck Casebook?

 

The Tuck casebook punches above its size. Its problem is exactly that size, so know what it does well before you build your prep plan around it.

 

Strengths

 

• Half the cases came from consulting firms and professional case writers rather than students

 

• Two generative AI cases, which is rare in free material and increasingly common in real interviews

 

• Every case is tagged with industry, case type, skills tested, and delivery style

 

• Interviewer guidance separates good, better, and best answers rather than giving one model response

 

• Fit questions and short prep tips are built into every case page

 

Weaknesses

 

• Only 12 cases, which most candidates will finish in under two weeks

 

• Thin on profitability, with just two cases built primarily around profit

 

• No math drill section, so you need a separate source for quantitative reps

 

• Several exhibits lose formatting badly in the PDF and are hard to read on a phone

 

• The book assumes you already know how to build a structure and does not teach it

 

That last gap is the real one. The sample structures show you what a good answer looks like without explaining how anyone got there, so if you want to learn how to build a custom structure for any problem, my case interview course walks through the method in as little as 7 days.

 

How Does the Tuck Casebook Compare to Other Casebooks?

 

Tuck is a top tier casebook on quality and a bottom tier one on volume. Its 12 cases are more realistic than most, but 12 cases will not carry a full recruiting cycle on their own.

 

The strongest use is as a quality benchmark rather than a case supply. Run Tuck cases when you want to check whether you are ready, and use a larger book like the Kellogg casebook for the volume of reps that builds fluency.

 

Tuck is also unusually strong on two case types. Its merger and acquisition cases both come at the problem from a private equity buyer's seat, which is closer to real diligence work than the corporate acquirer setups most casebooks default to.

 

For market entry, SwitchDeck Motors is a clean exhibit-driven problem where the answer turns on a detail most candidates miss: the client only builds left-hand drive vehicles, which quietly eliminates half the countries on the chart. That kind of buried constraint is exactly how firms separate careful candidates from fast ones.

 

Tips to Get the Most Out of the Tuck Casebook

 

Tip #1: Do not copy the sample structures

 

Every Tuck case includes an example structure with must-haves, nice-to-haves, and differentiators. Read the differentiators row after you build your own structure, never before, because reading first turns the exercise into recall rather than thinking.

 

Tip #2: Do both generative AI cases

 

OldSchool and PowerStride Sportswear are the only free casebook cases I know of built around generative AI. Firms are asking versions of these now, and the case types they wrap around are still familiar, which is exactly why they are worth the reps.

 

Tip #3: Use the risk bank as a brainstorming drill

 

The concepts section lists risks for mergers, market entry, and healthcare research alongside mitigating actions. Cover the page, generate your own list against a timer, then compare, because most candidates lose points at the end of a case rather than the start.

 

Tip #4: Steal the recommendation format

 

Tuck writes every wrap-up in the same four part shape: recommendation, reason, risks, next steps. Drilling that pattern until it is automatic is one of the cheapest scoring wins available, and a clean case interview recommendation is often what an interviewer remembers.

 

Tip #5: Rebuild the exhibits by hand

 

Several exhibits render poorly in the PDF, which sounds like a flaw but makes a decent drill. Sketch the chart yourself from the underlying numbers, then read it cold, and your mental math will sharpen alongside your chart reading.

 

Used well, the Tuck casebook is a quality filter rather than a case library. Download the 2024 edition, pick your first case by your weakest skill instead of by page order, and run it live with a partner tonight.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

Is the Tuck casebook free?

 

Yes. The Tuck Consulting Club distributes its casebook as a free PDF, and the 2024 edition circulates widely with no purchase or signup required. It was written for Tuck students first, so treat it as a student resource rather than an official firm publication.

 

How many cases are in the Tuck casebook?

 

The 2024 Tuck casebook contains 12 full cases across roughly 142 pages. Five were written by Tuck students, six were contributed by consulting firms and professional case writers, and one is a refreshed case carried over from an earlier edition.

 

What is the latest Tuck casebook?

 

The 2024 edition is the most recent Tuck Consulting Club casebook in wide circulation. It replaced the 2017 to 2018 edition, which is the version most people still find on document sharing sites. Use 2024 first, since it has the newer cases and the firm sponsored material.

 

Is the Tuck casebook good for beginners?

 

It works better once you know the basics. The Pediatric Hearing Aids case is explicitly labeled as suitable for a first ever case, but most of the book assumes you can already build a structure and run math without prompting. Learn the fundamentals first, then use Tuck for realistic practice.

 

Are Tuck casebook cases realistic for MBB interviews?

 

Yes, more so than most free casebooks. Half the 2024 cases came directly from consulting firms and professional case writers rather than students, and several are tagged with the firm style they imitate, including Bain style and McKinsey interviewer led formats. That firm involvement is the single biggest reason to use this book.

 

What is the Tuck Air case?

 

Tuck Air is the best known case in the Tuck casebook and appears in two versions. The original in the 2017 to 2018 edition is a profitability case about a Central American airline losing share to low cost carriers. Tuck Air II in the 2024 edition is a breakeven case about installing in flight WiFi across a fleet of 250 aircraft.

 

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