How many students go to Hogwarts?

[jferer]

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No: HPFGUIDX C6082
From: jferer
Subject: How many students go to Hogwarts?
Date: 8/7/00 6:49 pm  (ET)

I've long been perplexed by the question of how many students there
actually are at Hogwarts. A lot of people think there's ten in each year
at each house, but I don't think that makes sense. What do we know?

1. There are five Gryffindor boys in Harry's year.

2. A magical quill writes the name of a magical baby in a book at the
time of its birth; Prof. McGonagall checks the book and writes letters
to each when they turn eleven.

3. The Sorting Hat puts each student into the house he or she is best
suited to.

4. All the first-year students take the trip from Hogsmeade station to
Hogwarts in boats, while the second through seventh-years take carriages,
described as about a hundred, that seat at least four each.

5. The castle is *big*. I've been in a couple of castles, not even the
biggest ones, and there's a lot of space. Even accounting for places
we've never seen, like the teacher's apartments, there's got to be a
lot of spare space at Hogwarts, unless there's things going on there we
don't know about (Dept. of Mysteries, perhaps?)

What conclusions can we draw?
a. We can't assume that because there are five Gryffindor boys in Harry's
year that there are five of each gender in each house in each year. The
number's going to vary naturally, and the Sorting Hat puts people where
they belong, not by quota.

b. If there are 400 students in the carriages, and they're 6/7 of
the school (the first years are in the boats) then there's about 467
students. That might be conservative. If there really were five of
each gender in each house in each year,[5x2x7x4] there would only be
280 students.

Even at 467, Hogwarts is not a big school. They must rattle like peas
in a bucket in that castle. I don't believe that JKR has ever explicitly
said how many students there are.

Has anybody else considered this?