Hogwarts population + JKR in Bazaar

[Jim Ferer]

No: HPFGUIDX 9712

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, "Meg " <homanm at u...> wrote:
 
Meg:"...if you take into account muggle wizarding births (like 
Hermione) the wizarding population birth rate gets even smaller.  
This definately doesn't make any sense, what with all we know about 
the many wizarding families and there being enough of them so that 
there are lots of completely pureblood kids running around.  Plus, 
if we assume that every class in Hogwarts is the same size, we'd also 
be saying that every year there are 10 wizarding kids born who have 
brave personalities, 10 who are studious, 10 who are devious, and 10 
who are loyal.  What are the odds of that actually happening?  What 
happens if there are 11 loyal kids born in a particular year?  Or 27 
studious ones?  Are 10 allowed to come to Hogwarts and the 
left-overs have to be home-schooled?  Class sizes at muggle schools 
aren't  uniform, and personality traits definately aren't either, so I 
don't  know why we should assume that the opposite is true in the 
wizarding world.  Maybe Harry's year is so small because in 1980 only 
8 wizarding kids were born with Gryffindor personalities, but there 
could be any number in the other houses."

Exactly, and the Sorting Hat says straight out that it puts students 
where they 'ought to be,' and by inference, without regard to quota, 
proportions among houses, or anything else.

Your point about birthrate is right on target, too. Consider that if 
the magical birthrate is as low as it would have to be to get such low 
numbers of students, wizard society would die out. What we do have is 
a vibrant wizard society with lots of businesses like Bertie Botts, 
Quality Quidditch Supplies, various professional Quidditch teams, 
etc., and a seemingly endless bureaucracy at the MoM.  You wouldn't 
have any of that if the population was that low.

My two daughters live in a town with 55,000 people in it. Their 
elementary school has 366 students in six years, and there are at 
least eight other elementary schools in town.  And Hogwarts has 300 
students for the entire magical population of the UK? I can't make it 
work in my head.

I'll check out JKR's picture for sure.  She was standing next to the 
salt piles under the Triborough Bridge? Doesn't sound very picturesque 
to me, but I see too much of them.