[HPforGrownups] HOW many classmates?/ Are there an equal number of students in each house?

[manawydan]

No: HPFGUIDX 91426

> Dorapye wrote:
> >Woah, there! THIRTY classmates?
>
Melz wrote:
> For Harry's year, there should be 5 boys and 5 girls in his house...
right? Logically, wouldn't that mean that there are 40 in >each year, and
around 280 students in the school...?

That's the implication that you get from the earlier books. Then someone
asked JKR how many students there were at Hogwarts, and she replied "about
1000".

This then meant that all the earlier sums didn't add up. Some people have
wondered whether Harry's year was particularly small (because of DE
depradations) or whether far more students were sorted into Hufflepuff. But
I just think that JKR hadn't been explicit about the numbers before, and
since committing herself to 1000, she's been consistent with her
descriptions.

The actual numbers in the first 5 years would be larger than 1000/7 of
course, because you have to assume that a certain number leave after taking
OWLs, so that years 6 and 7 will be smaller than years 1-5

Some of the implications are difficult to deal with, though. If you've got
30 per house, then some of the professors (Snape, Hagrid, Sprout) are
teaching classes of 60! Not even a teacher in a sink comprehensive has to
deal with that...

Cheers

Ffred

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