Random ideas

[Steve <bboy_mn@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51723

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Tom Wall <thomasmwall at y...>"
<thomasmwall at y...> wrote:
> mysmacek writes:
> - it seems to me, that during POA, there has to be about 10 first
> years in each house - certainly less than 20. ...
> 
> Me:
> Scholastic's website has several JKR Q&A sessions online.  
> 
> Here's the URL for the following canon:
> http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/author/transcript2.htm
> 
> -----
> Q: How many students attend Hogwarts, and how many 
>    students per year per house? 
> A: There are about a thousand students at Hogwarts.
> -----
> 
> If we do the math, we get:
> 
> 1000/4 = 250 
> 250 /7 = ~35
> 
> So, about 35 students per year per house.
> 
> Of course, that's assuming that each year, 
> roughly the same number ...
>  
> So, apparently, we haven't even met half
> of 'em in Harry's year alone.
> 
> -Tom

bboy_mn:
Just my opinion but when JKR said 1,000 I don't think she meant
1,000.00000000000000 

I think she was attempting to give us the relative size of the school.
That's a relatively large school as opposed to a relatively small
school with say 100 student, and differentiating it form a very large
school of 10,000 students.

So, in my book, relatively 1,000 is anything from 500 to 1200. I
didn't go plus/minus 500, because the size appears more likely to be
small rather than larger. 

There is a reasonable case to be made for about 600 students; that's
20 to 22 students per class per house. I come from a town of 400 and
the typical class size is 20 to 25 with a possible range of 15 to 30.

JKR only needs to tell us enough to tell the story, she doesn't have
to account for every single minute detail. If you believed the school
when you read it, then she has done her job as well as it needs to be
done.

This is also true of 'missing' student. According to what we have read
in the book, how many students are in Colin Creeve's class. I would
say TWO; Colin and Ginny. Have any other students been mentioned? I
don't think so, at least not directly. How many students are in the
5th or 6th years class? We don't know. But there are certainly enough
to tell the story effectively.

Missing student serve no purpose to the story, they just keep people
like us busy between books. There could be deep background people in
Harry's class that he doesn't associate with, and who serve no part in
the story, so they never get mentioned. All the evidence seem to point
to 10 to 12 in Harry's class, maybe you could stretch it as high as
15, but it definitely is below average. At the same time, I don't
think you can expand that number and accurately judge the size of the
school.

Just a few thoughts.

bboy_mn