Number of students in Hogwarts

[Legolas]

How many students do you think are there in Hogwarts? I personally go for something around 250-300...

[Sween]

well it is suposedly about 800! reasons for this is one of the quidich matches it says 200 slythrins chearing or summet so logically there is 200 people per house

[gollum9630]

i have to say i agree with sween from what have read of the HP books

[Sicirus]

I believe that not all the students go to the Quidditch matches in so not all of the Slytherin's were probably there. Maybe Harry was tacking a wild guess because there were so many.
There are usually ten per year. like ten first years per house. Probably more but hey.
In so multiply ten by seven years and get 70 per house then multiply 70 by four and get....320 students. Probably roughly more but thats my guess. There could most likely be 800 hundred though.

[Fimbrethil]

10 per year? That would make it at least 40 first years and from Harry's first to the times he's been in there for the sorting I'd hae to say there were at least 100 give or take a few. I'd have to say Swen was closer. And it's not like the sorting hat try's to balnce it out, I mean one year it could be 2 Ravenclaws and 40 Huffelpuffs it all depends on the students...or JKR's mood at the time she's writing about the first years.

[Sween]

To be honest i dont think she can make up her mind herself how many students there are the 200 slytherin statement does seem to contradict many other things if the sorting hat sortted equal numbers of students each house would have 28.6 students per year which would mean that having to share lessons with other houses would lead to very large lesson groups plus she seem to insinuate each house gets 5 new boys and 5 new girls each year

[IronParrot]

This actually appears to be a possible inconsistency in the text.

I recommend this essay for a comprehensive analysis of this question.

[Sheeana]

Well, either way, it's a small school. The fact that slytherins share potions with gryffindor is a pretty good indicator. Plus, and I know that while there are some that don't catch the train, how many people would realistically fit onto a train? (Of course, it could be that magic is used to make it have tardis-like proportions....)

Anyway, here's as good a guess as any from Rob Roy of SF-Fandom:

Well, we know a few things, that there are 20 teachers handling various classes. If we figure they have something like an hour and a half per class with four or five classes per day and an alternating schedule (which it sounds like they have, since Harry doesn't have the same classes each day) then you can have four or five classes each day.

If you ran 5 classes a day at 1 1/2 hours each class, that's a 7 1/2 hour day with a 1/2 in for lunch, which is about right for high school students. Now, if you've got 20 teachers (according to the book), with a schedule of five classes each day, that's 100 class periods being taught each day. Now even if you had only 20 students in each class, that equates to 2000 students all told. If we break that down by house, that means about 500 students per house (2000 students divided by 4 houses), and about 71 students per house year (500 students divided by seven years) or 285 students for all of Hogwarts per year.

Running the numbers with a 4 class schedule per day, you have a 6 hour day, that's 80 class periods being taught during the day, at 20 students per period, that's 1600 students. If we break that down by house (as above) that's 400 students per, and 57 students per house year or 228 students for all of Hogwarts per year.

The thread can be found here:
http://www.sf-fandom.com/vbulletin/s...029#post105029

Edit: These figures don't take into consideration that some classes appear to be shared between houses, or that there would be a fall-off rate between years (for drop-outs).

[Sween]

Just been re reading chamber of secreats it it quite clearly states when Harry and Ron go up to the domatiary after there arival there there is Neville, Dean and Semus there the other Grifindor second years. That would sugest that there is only 5 boys in there house for that year. But Taking into account that magical powers are a rare gift it can be suposed that many of the muggles borns that attend hogwarts could be a kinda random number which would mean that some years would or could be a lot bigger than others!

[Fimbrethil]

Well you would have to expect that because of the birthday's. I don't think anyone knows how that works Do you have to be 11 by the time th train leaves...say the train left August second 12:00 if you were born before August second 11:59 would they let you in that year or is it you have to be 11 before July 30ith. JKR has been very vague about this and probably always will be because that would limit her somewhat as to who you were talking to at the time or who you were dueling with. But everyone who has said something about the numbe of students have some very good points and some not so good ones. So really it all depends an how you look at things.

Edit:Then you would have to take in account that JKR always implies that there 14 separet dormitories in all the houses(7 for the girls, 7 for the boys).

[Sween]

I would imgin the year system will work the same as english schools which is 1st september to 31st august for each year

[Legolas]

Well, I fully agree with Sicirus. I think that Harry's year Gryffindor has 8 students in total, and it is not an exceptional year in student numbers. So there are up to 320 students in Hogwarts in total...

However, in OoTP, it is said that 'Harry felt 30 pairs of eyes staring at him' when he confronts Umbridge during class; assuming that there are (usually) 2 houses sharing each lesson, there are about 15 students per house per year, and this makes 420 students in total.

I however find no possible explanation as to how can there be more than 500 students in Hogwarts...

[L@ur@y Elven Warrior]

i think there is about 320 pupils in hogwarts.

[galadriel]

Originally posted by Fimbrethil
Well you would have to expect that because of the birthday's. I don't think anyone knows how that works

I'm pretty sure you have to be eleven or almost eleven, b/c Hermione was born is September, and it seems more likely she was turning 11 in her first year rather than 12.

Then again, Angelina was 17 in October of her sixth year.... that would mean she turned twelve before or a little after she first came to Hogwarts....

I think this is another plot inconsistency.

[Rána Eressëa]

I don't think even J.K. truly knows the answer to this.

I'm not about to take a guess either.

[Elf Girl]

Well, we know of 8 Griffindor fifth-years. So if it remains constant, (which I am sure it doesn't) we have 56 Griffindors. Multiply that by four, and the numbe of students at Hogwarts is ROUGHLY 224. Seems to tally with the analysis of the class schedule...

[Elf Girl]

Double-post.

[durin's bane]

I think Rowling herself said in an interview that there were 300 students at Hogwarts.

[galadriel]

Isn't the number Rowling gave 1000? Isn't that what all this controversy is about?

[Evenstar1400]

if ur really determained to know, you could probibly watch one of the hp movies, pause when you have a wide shot of the entire great hall, and count every student sitting at the table. that might not be entirely accurate, but since jk was kinda in charge of what everything should look like and how many people there were and stuff, it could very well be somewhere around the number of people there are in the school.