The Eggplant and Snape and I - Size

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 139384

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "eggplant107" <eggplant107 at h...>
wrote:
> "Cathy Drolet" <cldrolet at s...> wrote:
> 
> > There are 40 students, according 
> > to JKR, in Harry's year. 
> 
> Yes but she also said there were about 1000 students at Hogwarts and
> 7 times 40 is not equal to 1000.
> 

bboyminn:

Well, I'm straying from the central subject somewhat, but I thought I
would comment on the School Size issue. If you have the right
attitude, it's actually quite easy to resolve.

First, I take JKR statement of 1,000 students to be the capacity of
the school, not the current enrollment. We see there are plenty of
unused classrooms at Hogwarts, that certainly implies that the
enrollment is far from maximum. I extend this into the real world by
pointing out the the enrollment at the University of Minnesota can
fluctuate by as much as 30%. 

Further, I'm not sure JKR ever specifically said Harry's class year
was 40 students. We know (pretty much) that there are 10 in Harry's
class, it also /appears/ that there are 10 Slytherins, we /assume/
there are 10 Hufflepuffs, and we really don't have enough information
about Ravenclaw to even assume (as far as I know).

However, 7 X 40 is good guess, but a flawed estimation because it is
based in unfounded and unlikely assumptions. It is illogical to think
that all class years are exactly the size of Harry's class year. We
don't know how many are in in Percy's year or Fred and George's year. 

It is futher illogical to assume that all House sizes are exactly the
same. I would guess many more Hufflepuffs than other Houses when view
across a broad spectum of time. Further, more Ravenclaw than Slytherin
or Gryffindor. So, likely Hufflepuff is largest followed by Ravenclaw
with Slytherin and Gryffindor being the smallest and general equal in
size. That assumption, means that Harry class size is not
representative of the school in general. 

I've always estimated current enrollment in the range of 400 to 600.
Regardless of the accuracy of that guess, I'd say it's far more
accurate than 7 X 40 = 280. 


> > None of the students knew, before
> > the beginning feast, of the change
> > of Potions Master.
> 
> True again, but as soon as they heard they may have guessed that the
> new Potions Master probably didn't have the same unusually stringent
> entry requirements Snape did and borrowed books from friends or
> received them from a Federal Express Overnight Owl.
> 
> Eggplant

bboyminn:

I don't really think many students would be eager to take potions.
Snape doesn't make it a very pleasant or appealing situation. So, only
student who truly had a strong interest or who desperately needed the
class for a future career would take it. 

I really do think most student would be glad to be able to drop it.
So, I really don't see a huge difference between Slughorn's class size
and Snape's assumed class size. I think the difference is Harry and
Ron, who were added in because Slughorn was teaching. Most other
students had made up their mind not to take it regardless of the teacher.

It's also possible the other Heads of Houses simply accepted their
students decision on the matter, whereas McGonagall encouraged Harry
to continue studying potions because she knew he wanted to be an
Auror, and she had promised to help him achieve that goal.

So, any conflict between the before and after size of the Potions
class doesn't bother me, because I don't see that there would be much
difference. 

Just a few thoughts.

Steve/bboyminn