Some of Stanford's on-campus residences offer special academic or social programs. For example, several residences sponsor intensive foreign language study. One of the core principles of the Housing Draw is the concept of Support for Residential Programs. This principle states that students who want to live in a residence offering a special program deserve to know that the other students who will be living in that residence are also committed to its program. The priority system is designed to deal with this problem.
Some residences offer more than one level of priority.
When deciding who will be assigned to a residence with multiple priority levels, the Draw program will give first preference to students at the first priority level. If not all spaces in the residence are filled by students with first-level priorities, the remaining spaces will be offered to students at the next priority level, and so on. Finally, if any vacancies still remain, students without any priority at all for the residence will be considered. In certain special cases, a residence's special program may be considered to be so important that no student will be assigned to that residence without a priority under any circumstances. That is, in the event that not enough students with priorities choose the residence to fill it entirely, the remaining spaces will be left vacant and will not be offered to students without priorities.