Curiouser and curiouser

Archer got home yesterday afternoon.  He thinks the interviews went well, although he said the interview with the "Ivy" league school was the hardest interview he's ever had.  That is saying something given that Archer has had a lot of initial interviews and a fair amount of on-campus interviews as well.  Apparently a lot of the questions were hypothetical, and not the "if you could teach any course what would it be?" hypothetical.  One of the questions was something along the lines of "You have a Ph.D. student who is selecting a topic, and you want to encourage the student to explore an area that hasn't been addressed.  How do you convince the student to take on that topic?"

He has no idea what will come of either interview, but I think he is likely to get an on-campus interview with the school that is closer to Home State.  I'll call that school PS for private school.  It is a mid-size private liberal arts school.  As I said earlier, I have a good friend who teaches there, so we've been able to get a lot of inside information.  In fact, this friend, B, (I know, my pseudonyms are lame, but whatever) sent Archer all kinds of information about PS that Archer would have had a hard time finding on his own.  B was also able to answer a lot of Archer's questions about PS, making Archer look really informed at the interview.  PS also has a history of partner placement, so that makes me hopeful.

As for the "Ivy,"  I'm not sure what to think.  An offer from this school is a game changer.  I honestly don't know what it would mean for us as a couple or us as a family.  As for me, there is no way I'd get any kind of offer from this school, and more to the point, I have no desire to work at an "Ivy."  My reasons for this are primarily connected to the kind of family life I want to have, but I also have no desire to devote my life to research in that way.  "Ivy" is in a location that has a lot of other schools, so there is a strong possibility I could find work elsewhere.  I would, however, end up adjuncting for a while with no guarantee that I'd ever get a tenure track job.

And Archer and I now have a meeting with the dean of our faculty at CU to get some more clarification on my position.  It's all getting very curious, indeed.