About Jordan

One of my engineering professors in undergrad told this story at a seminar about how he spent three years making this new medical device that he thought would be revolutionary. When he finally took it to a doctor after three years, he said the doctor told him, "This is a really great piece of technology, but I am sorry, I just can't use it." He then launched into this long lecture about how as engineers, we needed to work closely with doctors to understand what their needs are. As I sat in that lecture hall listening to his story, I thought to myself, "Yeah, but if I am the doctor, I will know what doctor's need." That moment has shaped how I think about a lot of things. I immediately started taking all the pre-med classes along with my chemical engineering courses. Fun fact: I had to take more courses in chemistry because of pre-med courses then I did from chemical engineering. Wild huh!? Anyways, once I graduated I found a perfect medical school for me: the Carle Illinois College of Medicine. They called themselves an "engineering-based" medical school and their stated objective was to train "Physician-Innovators" who could leverage their background in engineering to influence medicine. Then halfway through medical school, I couldn't fight this itch that I wanted to understand the business too. Doesn't matter how revolutionary your idea is, and if doctor's really want to use it, if it doesn't make sense economically then it is also going nowhere. So during my second year of medical school I studied for the GRE while keeping up with my coursework (I was busy) and then applied to just two M7 programs to see what my chances were: the one-year program at Northwestern Kellogg School of Management and the MS/MBA in biotechnology program at Harvard Business School. I was waitlisted at HBS and got into Kellogg. It was a wild experience - applying to two top-ranked business schools with no friggin' clue what I was doing - and getting pretty far in both processes. I decided to take a year off between my third and fourth year of medical school and attend Kellogg, and it honestly was the best decision I could possibly make for myself. During my time at both Carle Illinois and at Kellogg, I spent time on the admissions committee. I reviewed applications at Carle Illinois and I was a student interviewer at Kellogg. Now I think I have a friggin' clue what I am doing when it comes to admissions. I'm excited to share more about how I have navigated both worlds, and hopefully help you do the same too!