If you are applying to business school, you have probably heard about the “case method” more times than you can count—and likely wondered what the experience is like and what it asks of MBA students. In this episode of The mbaMission Podcast, host Harold Simansky and mbaMission Executive Director Jessica Shklar sit down with Harvard Business School (HBS) professor Joshua Margolis, a faculty member in the Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning, for a candid look at how the case method works at the school that invented it.
Applicants should take note of these four fundamental takeaways.
Table of Contents
1. The cold call is not what you think.
The most-discussed moment in the HBS classroom is also the most misunderstood: the cold call. Some professors use a random number generator to select which student will begin the discussion. Others pick deliberately based on the case. (Professor Margolis’s late colleague Jack Gabarro used to point out that right-handed professors, after writing on the board, tend to call on students to their right, so they have to compensate by scanning the whole room.) The goal in every case is the same: to establish a foundation for a robust discussion, not to embarrass the student who is chosen. Knowing that should take a weight off for anyone nervous about case classes.
2. The “warm call” is what actually trains you to be a leader.
In the final ten minutes of class, Professor Margolis will give a student five minutes’ notice and ask them to identify three core themes from the discussion, take a position on one of the decisions the class has debated, and announce what they have decided. This is, he says, exactly what leaders are asked to do—listen intently, synthesize what they have heard, and commit to a view. This is why, in the HBS admissions interview, the school is seeking to learn “Can this applicant hear a room, decide what matters, and own a position?”
3. Plan to dedicate two to four hours individually per case, plus more with your study group.
That is Professor Margolis’s honest answer to the most practical question HBS applicants ask. He adds that the first six weeks of any case method program will feel especially slow because you are “learning to learn” in a new way. He cautions that second-year students are not the best source of factual information about the first year of the program because they have romantically glossed over the most intense stretch. If you are considering attending a business school that heavily, or exclusively, uses the case method, the best way to evaluate the approach is to sit in on a class, and to ask first-year students what their experience has been like.
4. If you sit in on a case class as an applicant, watch for three things.
First, watch for the moments when the professor sparks disagreement between students seated in different parts of the room. HBS professors are taught early to look for these “pastures of discussion” and to use the physical layout of the room to widen the conversation. Second, listen for the second-order question the professor asks to push the conversation deeper. Third, ask yourself, as the discussion unfolds, how your own thinking is changing in real time—which assumptions are holding up, and which are not.
The full podcast conversation delves even deeper, covering how HBS instructs its faculty to teach using the case method and how study groups are constructed. It is recommended listening for anyone considering attending HBS, UVA Darden, Dartmouth Tuck, Northwestern Kellogg, the Stanford GSB, or any other case method program.
New episodes of The mbaMission Podcast are released every Tuesday on all major streaming platforms, with full video episodes available on mbaMission’s YouTube channel. If you are curious about how your background, goals, and target schools line up with what top business programs are looking for, sign up for a free 30-minute consultation with Harold, Jessica, or another member of the mbaMission team.
