Number of Students at Hogwarts

[davidbartmess]

No: HPFGUIDX 68993

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "joanne0012" <Joanne0012 at a...> 
wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lynnfaragher78" <
> jamielynncarlson at h...> wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > There are 5 identical beds in Harrys room (Harry, Ron, Neville, 
> > Seamus, and Dean)
> > 
> > 20 broomsticks for the Slytherins and Gryffindors class....
> > 
> > I then assume that there are 5 boys and 5 girls in each house 
and in 
> > each year....
> > 
> > 40 new students per year, 70 students per house, and 280 
students 
> > total.......
> > 
> > Does that sound about right???
> > 
> > 
> > "lynnfaragher78"
> 
> Yes, it makes sense to me (though there might be slightly 
different numbers of 
> boys/girls in each year in each house, not exactly 5 each).  BUT 
JKR once 
> said in an interview that there were "about 1000" students at 
Hogwarts.  Other 
> approaches (extrapolating from classes, dining hall, etc. etc.) 
have come up 
> with other figures in between these 2.

This is one of thoose issues that JKR almost defenetly made a 
mistake.  1000 students in Hogwarts would mean around 250 students 
per house.  Just immagine a "common room" big enough for 250 
students.  That alone seems very high to me.  250 students per house 
divided by 7 years means around 35 students per year per house 
(IE... 35 first year Gryffindors, 35 first year Slytherns.... etc).  
Now stop to think about that....  35 students in single classes, and 
when 2 houses take classes together (like potions where Gryffindors 
take there class together with the Slytherns)  there would be 70 
students in ONE CLASS!  That's a bit absurd.  Not to mention the 
fact that we are only told of about 5 boys in Gryffindor that are 
Harry's age  (Harry, Ron, Nevil, Sean, and Dean).  

When we concider all this, and do the math it's easy to see that 
1000 students seems a bit high, but bear in mind that when JKR gave 
this figure, it wasn't part of one of the books where she had time 
to really think about it and do the math work.  She gave that figure 
as part of an interview, where someone threw the question at her 
unexpectedly.  She didn't take time to really think about her 
answer.  The question seemed farily harmless, and probably without 
much thought she gave the figure of around 1,000.

David Bartmess