For upperclassmen who don’t plan to remain in their current buildings, the housing lottery is an automated system that tries to place students in rooms according to their requested preferences. If a student loses out in the lottery and doesn’t receive his or her first preference, the system will attempt to place them in their second preference, and so on.
Students who plan to stay in their current buildings have priority over those who are switching, but have to face a different placement system in the form of housing points. Though each house’s system is different, they typically award points based on the number of semesters lived in the house — and the more points someone has, the better chance they have of getting their preferred room. Lotteries are used only in the case of a tie.
