[HPforGrownups] Hogwarts population - I have proof! (not conclusive)

[Simon]

No: HPFGUIDX 12463

Becky wrote: "I know, I know, it's been brought up a million times....but I
was reading my snazzy new adult-cover UK edition of PoA (thank you to my
sweetie for the V-day gift!) and during the Gryffindor/Slytherin match, it
states that 3/4 of the students were wearing crimson (Hufflepuffs &
Ravenclaws rooted for Gryffindor) and then when Harry is flying, he looks
down and sees 200 Slytherins wearing green (Snape was in the front row
wearing green robes). I'm going to go out on a
limb here and say that all of the Slytherins were rooting for their own
team, which means that we can just do some elementery algebra (1/4 of the
students is 200 students, therefore there are 800 students total),
and......YEE HAW! We have a number of Hogwarts students: 800."

The evidence that you have presented in inconclusive. Yes there are 200
supporters of the Slytherin team, but no indication is made that they are
all students. The commonly aired reason at this stage is that alumni visit
the school for some of the games and it was in fact these people that made
up the vast majority of the supporters.


The evidence for any of the possible student population figures (300, 500
and 1000 are the commonly touted figures) can be backed up with evidence
from the canon, but to do so in each case means ignoring some of the other
evidence presented.

We know Harry's year in Gryffindor to have at least 8 people, and in all
probability 10. There is only one boy's dorm for their year in Gryffindor
and there are only the 5 boys in the year. In joint lessons with both
Hufflepuff and Slytherin we get totals of 20 students. This suggests 10
students per year per house (on average), which gives a total of about 300
students.


Various people have suggested reasons involving disproportionate year sizes,
but I have yet to see any reason that is convincing. If the Harry's year is
small because of the Voldemort effect then so also should be the years above
him and also Ginny's year as these are the children born while Voldemort
carried out his reign of terror. Year groups could vary but why not by more
than a factor of 2. To get the population up to 1000, from having 50 in
Harry's year, requires year sizes of over 150. Which is a totally massive
leap from the suggested size of Harry's year.

Yet, as Dai said earlier, Hogwarts will seem empty unless it has 1000 people
in it and may even seem quite empty with this number in it. It is described
as being massive and, as pointed out, it takes ages to get from one part of
the castle to another. The corridors are described as being busy and this
could only happen with a large number of people in a small space.


But I pity the poor people having to sit through the sorting. Taking an
average of one minute per student, which seems reasonable, and a year size
of 150 (about equal to 1000/7) gives a sorting of 2 and a half hours. To get
the sorting in at under 30 minutes would requires each student to go from
being lined up to having been sorted in 12 seconds, which would be one
incredible feat. Also a good estimate would be that they would get into
Hogwarts at around 8 pm after the train journey up (it is dark, or nearly
dark, when they arrive and this is a reasonable time for dusk at the
beginning of September in Scotland). 2 hours of sorting, some notices and a
feast of a couple of hours will take them through to midnight. Would the
students ever get any sleep? They are up the next morning to start work at 9
pm, rather them than me (though I am seemingly incapable of getting up for
anything earlier than a 10 am start nowadays - have been a student for too
long).


Having 75 people per house, would this give enough people to choose a
Quidditch team from. There seems to be some competition for places, the
first years, in general do not play, and many will not have their own
broomstick or will be uninterested in playing. Having 250 to choose from
seems like a much better option.


Now for another argument I have not seen before. At the end of first year
each house had around 400 points. This seems to be a very low total. If the
points are only really of interest to those who are in the first few years,
which seems reasonable based on my experience of a similar system at my
school where this type of thing only really interest to the younger members
of the house. Say just the first 3 years really make any effort to get
points to contribute to the points total for the house. If we have 1000
students in the school then we get about 100 in the first three years per
house. This gives us an average of 4 points per person. Yes some do not get
any, and some will be lost by others, but even so 4 points per person?
Hermione gets this on the first day (of each year if my memory is correct)
of each school year.

With 300 students, this would covert to about 15 points per person, which
still seems to be very low. Maybe this is a topic for a different post, but
why such low points totals? I started this post to talk about the size of
the Hogwarts student population and have been left concerned about the house
points system. Will be giving it some thought.



Becky wrote: "OT: Plus, I'm in a very good mood because it is 85 degrees
outside and sunnny and I'm about to leave work! Woo hoo!"


The only reason I bothered to start this reply was that this comment annoyed
me and I wanted to respond. It is cold and dark here (something to do with
it being quite late) and the only blessing is that it is not raining at the
moment.


Simon
--
"I'm Dr. Simon Branford. I'm in charge of this floor, and this room is
off-limits to everyone..." - Draco Sinister Chapter 7 -- Easy Is the Descent
by Cassandra Claire - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ParadigmOfUncertainty