numbers at Hogwarts

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 53346

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, artsylynda at a... wrote:
> 
> Steve: 
> > remember that there are only 3 other guys in Harry &Ron's year
> 
> This brings up a point that has been bothering me. If there are 
> only 5 boys and 3 girls in Griffendor in Harry and Ron's year, how 
> in the world do they figure there are 1000 students at Hogwarts?  
> Is this particular class quite small???  Or did most of them wind up
>  in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw?  (There  aren't that many in Slytherin 
> in Harry and Ron's year, either -- Malfoy,  Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy and 
> two other girls -- who have I forgotten??)  Any  ideas on this?
> 
> Lynda 
> * * *
> "Don't let  the Muggles get you down." Ron Weasley PoA

bboy_mn:
This is one of the MOST UNSOLVABLE mysteries in this series. Countless
man hours (person hours) have been spend trying to find a solution,
and no one has done it yet.

All we can do is make several assumptions that attempt not to solve
but to offer some explaination; an explaination conjured from our
imaginations.

1,000 students is not an absolute. It simply is intended to give us a
general relative size of the school. 1,000 means (to me) somewhere
between 600 and 1200. Why? Because that's what my imagination tells me.

Without question, Harry year seem to have exceptionally small house sizes.

Yes, we recently talked at length about the likelihood that Ravenclaws
and Hufflepuffs are very common, and Slytherins and Gryffindors are
relatively rare. That helps reduce Harry class size while allowing the
overall school to remain larger than his class size would indicate.
Fact? No! This theory has as many holes in it as every other theory
out there, but my imagination likes it.

Current estimates that try hard to resolve as many issues as possible
would probably place the school size at 400 to 600.

Can I prove that? No, but I can imagine it.

bboy_mn

PS: This really is the ultimate unsolvable problem, but I think we are
still open to new theories.