Cessna Citation Sovereign (C680)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
ATC Issue All Types; Inflight Event / Encounter Wake Vortex Encounter
Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Environment - Non Weather Related; Procedure
On approach into MDW Chicago Approach cleared us to descend to 2;500 ft and prompted us to call an [air carrier] plane in sight that was on the ILS/visual to runway 4R. We both identified the [air carrier] plane so we called them in sight and were subsequently cleared for the visual to runway 4R behind the [air carrier]. We leveled at 2;500 ft as assigned and had adequate spacing (about 5nm according to TCAS) on [the air carrier] in front of us. There was a crosswind component at 2;500 ft of about 10 knots and with the spacing everything seemed okay in regards to wake turbulence. Shortly before the outer marker; still at 2;500 ft; we entered the wake of the 737 ahead of us. It was very turbulent; our plane rolled abruptly to the right and the autopilot disconnected itself. The turbulence and the rolling motion continued so the Captain decided to climb to try to get out of the wake as quickly as possible; which worked. He climbed 300 ft - 400 ft and the ride smoothed out. I informed approach we had climbed to get out of the wake turbulence and he said okay and transferred us to Tower.In this situation; given our clearance; I'm not sure what we could have done differently to avoid the wake turbulence. I know wake separation was our responsibility once we called the 737 in sight; but I feel like approach set us up for failure by putting us below the flight path of the plane we were told to follow. We hit the wake before we could have applied any vertical wake separation techniques.
CE-680 First Officer reported encountering wake turbulence on approach to MDW in trail of a B737.