BRITS: Hogwarts Housing

[Heather Moore]

No: HPFGUIDX 29688

 
 Everybody's aware of the seeming discrepancy between JKR's claim of a thousand Hogwarts students, and the "homelife" clues which suggest a much smaller population. Is it feasible to propose that while most of the First and Second Years and the collegers live in the castle, there is *also* a larger population who live as oppidans in Hogsmeade? I should think that would only give more weight to the view of Hogsmeade as a college town which grew up initially to support the school, providing boarding houses and the like.

Is it possible also to suppose that the teachers we have been shown are just the Masters (indeed, Snape is commonly referred to as Potions Master), some of whom also have Fellows beneath them whom have not yet met? Is it common in the British school system for the younger, rather than the older, students to take classes directly from the Department Heads?

 From what clues we've been given, does Hogwarts appear to be more *like* a public school with a couple of extra forms tacked on at the beginning, or more like a council school only known of and directed toward a specific population (what we in America would call a "magnet school")?