HOW many classmates?

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 91394

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dorapye" <helenhorsley at h...> 
wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "manawydan" <manawydan at n...> 
> 
> > I get the impression from the books that once JKR had said 
> publicly that
> > there are around 1000 students at Hogwarts, all the references 
to 
> numbers
> > (not only this one, which I hadn't noticed before, but also the 
> Yule Ball,
> > the exam scene, etc) are all written with that in mind.
> > 


Dorapye wrote:
> Yes, this is what she has said, but people have always found it so 
> hard to marry the numbers up, largely as we only have 8 
Gryffindors 
> in Harry's year in canon.  
> snip<
> Let's say the Sorting Hat does literally "quarter" the students 
each 
> year, and take Harry's estimate of 30 DADA classmates as his full 
> house complement, times by 4, then by 7 and we get 840 students at 
> Hogwarts. Of course, each year group may very in numbers, so this 
> could still be way off, but this is still a lot closer to JKR's 
1000 
> or so, and just makes better sense.
> 
> Any thoughts?


Dorapye, you brought up some very good points. The numbers have 
never made sense to me. Neither 40 new students a year nor 1000 
students make any sense with just the 4 main teachers.  It's not 
like we hear "Harry hopes to get a different potions teacher this 
time..."  Professor Snape teaches all the potions classes, 
McGonagall the transfigurations, etc.  They couldn't teach 1000 
students, could they?  On the oher hand, several of the classes 
appear to be only the one house of 8-10 students.  Sounds wonderful, 
but how could that work either?

I've always chalked it up to JKR being as number challenged as I am. 
(To me it's one, two, more than two..) And I've just ignored the 
discrepencies.)

OK, so this post was no help at all!

Potioncat