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[betterslac]

Go to the interview and do the best you can.

What you have to decide is:

1) If you get an offer, is it better than staying where you are even with a counteroffer in terms of money and opportunities?

2) How much better for you would it be to get tenure there than where you are, given the pressure-cooker price to be paid?

3) How much better off (if any) would you be if you did not get tenure there, but were able to tap their resources for six years? I personally know of 3 people in my social science field who did not get tenure at one or the other of the HYP's. One is now at Columbia, another at Duke and the other is at George Mason. So the spread can be considerable (though for all three, the HYP position was their first job).

[tortugaphd]

Good luck with the interview!

If you get an offer, see if your current institution will allow you take an unpaid leave while you try out the ivy for a year.  Your current institution may even be able to extend the leave to 2 years (I know someone who got 2 years).  Also, if you are at the point where you could go up for tenure after a year at the ivy, being on leave for 2 years will allow you to hang onto your current job while you await the tenure decision.

[firstgeneration]

sockpuppetftw - thanks for the congratulations.  Yes, I plan to take it, and have contacted my dean to chat early next week.  It's still very surreal.

Again, I appreciate the fora more than many of the regulars here can ever know.  As someone who's a first generation college student who landed an R1 as an ABD and now is heading to a dream position a few short years later, the sage advice I've received here has shaped (and is shaping) my early career.  I'm sure that many lurkers, even those who are not registered, could say the same.  Thanks to all of you, and OP, best of luck.

[larryc]

Congratulations, First Generation!

I appreciate the fora more than many of the regulars here can ever know.  As someone who's a first generation college student who landed an R1 as an ABD and now is heading to a dream position a few short years later, the sage advice I've received here has shaped (and is shaping) my early career.  I'm sure that many lurkers, even those who are not registered, could say the same.  Thanks to all of you, and OP, best of luck.

The irony is that most of us regulars are posting while plastered.

[totoro]

If we had a lecturer (= junior assistant prof) who got an offer from the Ivy League (or MIT, Chicago, Stanford) I expect we would offer to promote them to associate professor at least right away (skipping the senior lecturer level). I would be surprised if we didn't. We can't really offer more money and our teaching load is very low already (top Australian Go8 university)...

I would go to the interview and then see what happens.

[ruralguy]

Oh, just visit.

If you get the offer, then you have something to think about more.

But....if you don't want to, then don't! You don't owe it to any dept. or higher power to accept an Ivy interview or job offer, if you are fine with the job you have now.

There are plenty of people who stay at their first faculty job for their entire careers. Some are actually doing it because they want to be doing it.

[hungry_ghost]

A good friend was in a similar situation recently. You've talked about how this move might affect your current colleagues. Even more, how would it affect you?

One issue is the move to a higher-pressure workplace. Like you, my friend an opportunity at a higher-ranked school. It was not an Ivy but as you describe it was a "pressure-cooker" job and would have taken everything my friend had. He realized that he is ambitious, but not that ambitious. He is a hard worker, but wants time for life outside of work, and being on the TT in such a pressure-cooker environment would have meant that he would not have had anything in his life outside of work, nothing. A different person might have responded a different way, "wow, having access to the resources, and having much better students would be an amazing thing for my work, this is far more important to me than anything else." If you move to a higher-pressure environment, you are going to be working more and harder and feeling more pressure.  You know that on some level, but think hard about what it will mean for your life. Will you thrive and be excited and motivated? or will it squeeze the life out of you? You know yourself and only you can answer this.

Another issue is that you mention that the department has "some problems". What does that mean? My friend used just this phrase to describe what he'd heard about the department where he was interviewing. During the interview (and by keeping his ear to the ground) he discovered that "some problems" were major and influenced the atmosphere and effectiveness of the department. I think it is significant that you like your current position and colleagues. I would encourage you to go to the interview and listen carefully. Ask any questions, keep in mind that you have a job and they may want you to move, so you are interviewing them. Be on the lookout for signs of "toxic" and do not give up a healthy department for a toxic one, regardless of salary or Ivy.

In short, a "better job" comes with more prestige and will probably lead to more research and publishing opportunities and resources, but "better job" doesn't necessarily mean "better life" for a particular individual (though it might). 

Others may have something to add about becoming a colleague in a department where you were once a student. I have heard that this can be difficult.

Think about all these things as you interview. You don't need to make a decision at this point, but it is good to be considering the different paths you might choose and how those would affect your life.

[aprilmay]

First, congratulations on the campus visit. I agree with the posters that encourage you to take the interview. If you are not offered the job, you have no decision to make. If you do get an offer and decide to stay, your current school will love that you turned down an ivy for them. If you do get an offer and decide to go, you will have made a choice that the new school is better for you. Really I do not see what you have to lose.

If you apply for a job, get a campus interview, and then tell them you are not interested, it could look a little weird. They will wonder why you even applied. People routinely turn down interviews for good reasons, such as they got a job elsewhere. If you turn down the interview, it will be because you changed your mind, which you are entitled to do, but do not expect an interview at this school again anytime soon.

I would not worry about all the challenges of being at an ivy. You can make this decision later if you get an offer. For now, go on the interview and continue to learn about the position. I am writing from the perspective of faculty at a top ivy and agree with hungry_ghost that "better job" does not necessarily mean "better life." This is a great life for some, but is not for everyone. But for now, just go on the interview.

[sockpuppetftw]

Thanks to all of you for this excellent and thoughtful advice. One of the reasons I decided to sockpuppet the question was that I was worried about the (somewhat justified) anger that would be expressed by people who had been in the position of losing someone very early on after a long and difficult search. Hearing that most people think it's understandable that I might want to go out for the interview and see what happens, is reassuring.

The better life question is a/the real one, and one I need to stay focused on thinking about during the visit. I am also concerned about falling back into 'graduate student' mode - luckily, I've been away for a while, but some students and many faculty from that period are still around.

Leobloom - yes, I applied after being aggressively recruited to do so, but with a secret 'guilt register' about doing so. The search process was weird in typically Ivy ways, so the campus visit invite did come quite unexpectedly in the end.

Betterslac - your third question is, I think, my primary reason for thinking about it. To be good, I need students who will push me to be good on a regular basis, preferably by going after what I'm saying since that's when I do the best at figuring out myself why I want to approach an issue a certain way.

[larryc]

When you are an important part of any team it is easy and natural to think that you are indispensable, and the institution will collapse without you. Colleagues who like and respect you will tell you as much--not in any manipulative way but because they don't want to see you go and so believe it themselves. And you get to feeling guilty at the thought of "abandoning" the friends and programs and so on.

But it is all bullsh*t. When you leave, they will (eventually) hire someone else. That person will teach the classes, go the committee meetings, bring their own fresh ideas to the table. The institution will somehow survive. Honestly, from a larger perspective, you will not even be missed. So go, do the interview, and if you decide you want the job go ahead and take it.

[ucprof]

If you are in a good (read functional) dept they will not fault you for making a choice that betters your situation.  I've been in this sort of situation a couple of times - at a younger age with a "ttrack" offer from one of the HYPs which I turned down because it was not that great an offer and the chance of tenure was rather small given statistics - I saw no need to force UCspouse to another move a few years later.  More recently with a senior offer from another Ivy it was a hard choice between that and my current UC.  The public schools are really different from the privates and there are things I miss about being in a private school.  At the end it came down details regarding location, spouse, details about the different departments and my role, etc.  And just a gut feeling about what I wanted to do.  You have to consider all the angles on this.  I also think it's very different tenure track vs. tenure level position.