case competitions 101

--- title: "What case competitions are all about" slug: "case-competitions-101" type: "guide" excerpt: "Understand the purpose of case competitions, what a case usually looks like, and how teams are evaluated so you can show up prepared." difficulty: "intro" readingTime: 5 topics: ["case-competitions", "problem-framing", "storytelling"] categories: ["guides"] publishedAt: "2024-03-01" updatedAt: "2024-03-20" ---

Case competitions compress a real client challenge into a short sprint. You are evaluated on clarity of thinking, quality of insights, and how well your team can defend a recommendation.

Why schools and firms run these events

They are a high-signal way to spot talent. Organizers want to see how you handle ambiguity, structure a problem, and make tradeoffs under time pressure.

What to expect in a prompt

Most prompts include an objective, a constraint (budget, timeline, market), and supporting research. You should:

• Highlight your assumptions and label them clearly.
• Connect research to your recommendation, not just a data dump.
• Show how you sized the opportunity and the risk.

How judging works

Panels are usually a mix of faculty, alumni, and industry leaders. Scoring is often split across:

• Problem framing and logic
• Depth of analysis
• Practicality of the solution
• Presentation and delivery

A simple mental model

Think of the competition as a story: define the problem, show what matters, propose a path forward, and make the judge confident you can execute it.