Casey time management: where the 25 minutes go

Casey is short. Twenty-five minutes for structuring, math, exhibits, and synthesis is barely enough for someone who has practised the routine, and impossible for someone improvising.

A workable budget

• 0–3 min: Read prompt, clarify objective, draft top-level structure. One pass, no revisions.
• 3–8 min: Structuring response in chat. Type cleanly. Don't restructure mid-typing.
• 8–14 min: First quantitative question. Math is 4 minutes, sanity check 1 minute, answer 1 minute.
• 14–18 min: Exhibit or second quantitative. Same routine.
• 18–22 min: Open question or second exhibit. Lean on your structure — don't reinvent the case.
• 22–25 min: Synthesis. Recommendation + two reasons + one risk.

If you don't hit these markers, the synthesis question will arrive while you're still doing math, and a weak synthesis sinks otherwise strong cases.

What causes overruns

• Restructuring after Casey replies. Don't. The structure was scored when you typed it.
• Re-reading the prompt mid-math. The numbers are on the chart, not in the prompt.
• Over-explaining. Casey grades the answer, not the journey.

Recovery moves

If you're 4 minutes behind at the 18-minute mark, skip the second exhibit's deep analysis and jump to synthesis. A late, partial answer to the final question is worth more than a complete answer to a mid-case question.

Drill the budget

Run three full mock Caseys with a visible timer. Mark the times you finish each section. Most candidates discover they spend 9 minutes structuring (target: 8) and 7 minutes on the first math (target: 5). Closing those two gaps recovers the whole synthesis.

What scorers see

Casey's rubric weights the final synthesis heavily. A clean recommendation backed by two case-specific numbers tends to outscore a flawless structuring section followed by a panicked one-liner at the end.