Three seniors finished the weekend $1,500 richer after their team won first place in Harvard Student Agencies' first annual Case Study Competition.

The event, which took place Sunday at the Charles Hotel, gave 75 undergraduates the chance to hone their problem-solving skills for case-style business interviews.

J. Justin Pasquariello '01, Harini Reddy '01 and Radim Rimanek '01 took home first place honors after three rounds of competition that pitted 25 teams of three randomly assigned students against each other.

In the first two rounds, teams prepared answers to case questions and were each judged by a representative from one of the five consulting firms that sponsored the event--McKinsey, Bain, Monitor, Oliver, Wyman & Co. and Cap Gemini Ernst & Young.

The questions in the first two rounds varied from team to team, depending on the firm that was judging the specific group. The panel of judges for the final round included representatives from all of the sponsoring firms.

For Reddy, the win was entirely unexpected.

"I was really surprised. I came not even hoping to win and definitely thought I would be eliminated early on," she wrote in an e-mail message. "I really just came to the competition hoping to learn something."

The winning team's first question from McKinsey asked them to estimate the size of the market for AA batteries.