The best work on determining the enrollment at hogwarts is here [MOD EDITED] in which he posits 10 students per house per year, or 280 total. I think this number is too low.

For one, the Hogwarts castle is WAY TOO HUGE for that low number of students.
Secondly, -every- magical child in Britian is given an invitation to Hogwarts, which has no enrollment cap. The option is that there are only 300-400 children at any given time who are magical, which sets the wizarding population in britian at no more than 1000 - not nearly enough to support the various Quidditch teams, to support an additional wizarding community in Hogsmeade, thriving business in Diagon Alley, etc.

Hi there fetish.

I'd really appreciate it if you could take a quick look at the rules (again the links in my signature, at the bottom of this post) and it will give you a good guide for posting and opening topics.

We don't allow advertising (either your own site or not) on the pages of vtm, you can see the reasons why in the link below. Your post as you can see above has been edited now.

thank you

Shane

I think it's a fair number.

Most castles aren't really super huge. An average castle could probably sleep 50 or so comfortably. We know Hogwarts is probably far larger than the average castle, but using your number of approximately 280 students at one given time, then add in approximately 30-40 instructers/staff, and maybe 50 house-elfs, we're talking about seven times a normal castle's capacity!

One more thing to consider - there are at least two more wizarding schools, Durnstrang and Bouxbottoms (sp?). That would triple your figures for kids in wizarding school (840). And we've only been introduced to the European schools - I imagine there are far more in other areas of the world. Due to population, location and wealth, I'd wager Australia has only one, while the United States quite possibly has five or more. I'd put one in Montana - lots of countryside and few Muggles. But all that's just fun speculation really...

If you take it from the perspective of finding a solution, you can reverse-engineer solutions to hypothetical problems!

I always thought there must be about 10 people per year per house, like you which equals up to 280 total. Or else why would there only be 5 guys put into Gryffindor in Harry's year? I realise that the students are put into houses based on their inner qualities, but you'd think there'd be some system of making sure that the houses were roughly equal.

But in an interview with JKR, she said that there were about '1000 people at Hogwarts, why, because that's how many she made it'. Now, I'm assuming in that it would include 50 or so staff with that number of people, but I still can't see it.....

However in Book three, at the quidditch match it says that there were 3/4 of the crowd supporting Gryffindor and another 200 in green and silver. Which gives roughly 800 if it is only roughly 3/4 of the people.

I still can't see it.....

I recently thought about that. Let us assume that the average number of Hogwarts students per year is 40. Let us also assume that most wizard children in Britain go to Hogwarts. Let us assume that there is an average of 50 wizards of any given age. Let us assume that the average life span for wizards is 80 and there aren't enough premature deaths to matter. There would be about 4000 wizards in Britain.

Let us further assume that there are an equal proportion of wizards to muggles across the globe. Let us approximate that Britain has 100,000,000 muggles at the time. With a world muggle population of 6,000,000,000, there would be a world wizard population of 240,000. This is a sizable number but it would be unlikely that almost half of the wizarding world would attend the World Quiddich finale (where 100,000 attended).

If we do the same calculations and assumptions with Rowling's ~1000 Hogwarts students, the number of Britain wizards would be around 15,000 and the number of world wizards would be about 900,000. That seems more reasonable but still low.

Hiho, those figures look good but I think JK has said that Wizards live a lot longer then muggles. Something like 100 years or something...Can't remember exactly off the top of my head. So that would almost double your number i think.

Very intresting speculations indeed. I am currently think how many wizards would be in Canada, and it would be dramatically less then britan since there are more people living in Britan then Canada...but back topic. I basically am going to have to agree with these figures, we also need to think about the muggle borns, halfbloods which actually could dramatically increase these figures in ways if we are talking about the wizard population.

Hmm, well I couldn't find this thread anywhere so I thought I might start it, if one of the mods do find it, which I'm sure they will please feel free to lock the topic.

Anyway, moving on to the matter at hand. From all we hear of all the teachers, it seems there is only one teacher for each subject, how is this? I'm sure that in a school full of at least 7 years, consisting of many students, one subject is bound to come up twice. So, are there teachers we don't know about, if so, who are they? If not, how are these teachers getting around, timeturners?

Help me find out the answer to these hidden teachers, or how these teachers are getting around .

Happy posting,

dragontamer

Let's see, there are between 350 and 700 students at Hogwarts. Probably closer to 350. We know this from descriptions of required classes, like DADA, where I believe Lupin had 28 seats in his class, if I recall correctly.

Each DADA class has all of the students from 2 houses, from 1 year, in it. So that gives the total students in 1 year as approximately 2 x 28 = 56. That's a bit high. You can't expect every seat to be filled in every year. But it gives us a number, 56 x 7 = 392, as a likely maximum number of students at Hogwarts.

Most classes meet 2 or 3 times a week. Most classes are elective, so most have fewer students than DADA. now, 392 / 28 = 14, so 14 is about the minimum number of teachers you could have at the school. Because there ought to be teachers for some pretty obscure subjects (but more popular than Occlumancy) I would guess you would need about 20 teachers, minimum, to really run the school.

That's about twice as many teachers as I've heard of in any year.

Well, this is one of the areas in which JKR freely admits that she goofed. She aimed for Hogwarts to have a particular size, and contain around 1000 students in total, but if Harry's year is a typical example there would be no more than 7(years) * 10(five boys and five girls) * 4(houses) = 280 students total in the school.

70 students per house seems to be more in accordance with the description of the Gryffindor Common Room and the idea that there is only one Common Room in each house.

If there are only 280 students, there may not be a need to get more than one teacher per subject.

Given that Jo Rowling herself admitted to making an error, we have to ask ourselves whether it can't just be forgiven. The size of the school does not seem to affect the plot. Maybe there has been a time during which Hogwarts has had more students, but there still would have been only four houses. 250 students per house sounds like a bit too much for the organisation that has been described in the books: only one Head of House, no live-in teachers or other staff inside the House, and only one sparsely staffed infirmary for the entire school.

Sorry Bumblebee, it's not possible to have only a teacher per subject. Admitting that they do an average day of 4 hours (no more, believe me) of frontal teaching, and each class is formed by no more than 30 students...

We have the following data: circa 9 classes
7 hours (an hour for lunch) a day, 35 hours a week x class
required weekly 315 hours of teaching
about 16 teachers, teaching 20/22 hours weekly (which is more than high school teachers do) and no more, because there are activities behind the class teaching which are part of the job.

So there should be at least TWO teachers for every subject. Who would these unknown 8 be?

Witchmom )O(

This has actually bothered me for some time.

I distincly remember reading something about a Quidditch match having about 400 people or so attend. With 280 students and less than 120 teachers, this is impossible.

This was a huge mistake.

But who cares? We can pretend there's a couple random invisible students in there.

I put in bold somethig that offends me. I am a high school teacher. I teach 35 classes a week. I know you did not mean to insult me or my peers, but we work harder than most people know. In addition to being responsbile for 186 students every day, I must spend hours at home grading papers and preparing for lessons. I do not have magic to do any of it for me either.

Now, about the teachers, in Hogwarts, they do not teach every day. In Goblet of Fire, the fourth years had to wait several days to take Moody's DADA class. At most, a Hogwarts teacher will teach 14 classes. (7 years, 2 houses per class). But, at the NEWT level, all houses were combined (from what we have seen). This would mean that at most, a Hogwarts teacher will teach 12 classes. If each class meets for three times a week (I think Potions and Herbology meet three times, but have a double lesson as a 'science lab.'), then the teacher is responsible for 36 - 40 classes. Remember that many of these are the same lesson to different houses of the same year.

Now, not all classes are offered to every year. Charms, Transfiguration, DADA, Potions and Herbology are the only 'real' classes for the first and second years. (History does not count). When you consider who teaches these subjects, are you surprised that they can manage? Keep in mind that classes are only 45 minutes long (as I remember it).

Finally, kara, maybe people (like the Malfoys) come to watch the school Quidditch matches. Also, was it a Hogwarts match?

I think that to many thinks to much about the quidditch games at Hogwarts, it's not natural that only students and school staff go and watch these games, of course there's other people attending the games., everybody can't go watch the Cannons for example when they want to see some quidditch, and the residents in Hogsmeade is most likely to go watch the schoolgames... That is by the way a good way to finance the school because the students don't pay for an entrance fee to attend school and it's not likely that they get everything for free is it?

it was definatley a hogwarts match because i remember it too, because it also bugged me.

i think we have to remember that in gryfinndor house in harrys year there are more than 5 boys.

there is dean, seamus, neville, ron and harry

but also there is mclaggen who wasnt mentioned until HBP i dont think so he must be in a different dormitry with other boys

my guess is there is 10-15 boys from each house, meaning 20-30 people from each house from each year

say 20: 20x4=80x7=560

this would mean 560 students are in the school

there are also teachers, i also wondered how teachers taught every student however they must do because fred and george, (who arent in harrys year) and ernie mcmillian and malfoy (who arent in harrys house/not all his classes) all talk about the same teachers

also the staff table wouldnt be long enough to fit all the teachers if they had 2 for every subject.

i think JKR doesnt know herself the exact numbers of people at hogwarts and i dont think that it will affect the plot of the story, maybe in her final book, or an interview she will say how many she believes there are now even if she has made mistakes in the past.

Dear After the Burial, my explanation could be a little boring and maybe OT, but I want to let you know that I couldn't offend teachers in any way, since I am a teacher too... and vice-Headmistress in a school located in a very bad area of my town, so believe me, my students -and parents-are pretty tough to deal with, both on human and didactic levels.

I'm sending you a PM so I can explain better what i thought, without being cursed by all the non-teachers here.

Again, I didn't want to offend, just saying what a human schedule for a teacher should be. I am well aware of what we all do for the kids.

The fact that teachers are the most exploited workers in the world, considering that even a factory worker, after his hours, goes home and doesn't have to take his work with him...well, it's undeniable.

As far as Hogwarts teachers are concerned, I think that there is no necessity of stuffing lots of hours on a single teacher. As Malfoy has punctuated, he -and other wealthy people- make donations to the school so I think they can afford paying wages.
So, why not? why not other teachers? they could be 50 and we could ignore it...there are teachers in Harry's years whom are only mentioned...

Lavender, Cormack McLaggen isn't in Harrys' year, he is one year older, there are only 5 boys in Gryffindor in Harrys' year...

I would suggest that there are only 5 boys in Harry's Gryffindor year that we have been introduced to, who also share a dorm with Harry of course. But, I've always thought of the year to contain 25-30 pupils per house per year, except maybe for 7th year because so may drop out, and some may repeat years until they become of age, such as Crabbe and Goyle. It would seem that we've only been introduced to those characters that are important to Harry and/or the story, and i guess whoever shares a dorm with Harry would come into that. From the girls, we've only been introduced to Hermione, Lavander and Parvati, but I would expect there to be more than that, but why would we need to know the names of all 25-30 people in Harry's house year, or all 100-120 pupils in his whole year?

As for the teaching, I'm not a teacher so I guess i don't know to well. But firstly i know of other private schools in Britain that have a longer day than the state school that I attended, so maybe this might help account for some of the time. Also, not all, but some classes are doubled up, such as Potions and Herbology. Another thing, I use to know a drama teacher, and she was the only one in a school with between 900-1000 pupils (although I'm pretty sure it was only one lesson a week per class) and she managed to get round everyone (but I remember parents evening and reports being a nightmare for her), but as I say I'm not a teacher so I wouldn't know how it all works.

Well then thirty five per house, so thirty four times four is one-hundred and fory. So probably around that plus teachers is around one-hundred and sixy.

Although there are only 5 boys in Griffindor, I have often thought that Hufflepuff whould have a much larger group than the other 3 houses., maybe even combined.

Remember, it is harder to get into Slytherin (pure blood) and the others than Hufflepuff. So while Griffindor may only have 5 boys, Hufflepuff may have 20!

When considering the population of Hogwarts, we have to remember that Harry was born just a year before the first down fall of Voldemort.

There may not have been as many babys born for the eleven years that Voldemort was in power the first time. When James and Lily went to Hogwarts, there could have been twice the nomber of students!

There is another point I would like to bring up. We cannot calculate the nomber of wizards in Great Britain using the nomber of students at Hogwarts! Students can attend other schools, as Draco nearly did in book five or six.

Unless Jo gives us a solid, straight out fact, we can only guess, and my giess is around 280 students.

EDIT: THANKS MODS!!! I'LL BE MORE CAREFUL IN THE FUTURE! I PROMISE!!!

Hi there!
I started checking in PS/SS for how many students entered that year, and found out that 24 students were named by Professor McGonagall:

1- Abbot, Hannah ->Hufflepuff
2- Bones, Susan -> Hufflepuff
3- Boot, Terry -> Ravenclaw
4- Brockelhurst, Mandy -> Ravenclaw
5- Brown, Lavender -> Gryffindor
6- Bulstrode, Millicent -> Slytherin
7- Fin-Fletchley, Justin -> Hufflepuff
8- Finnigan, Seamus -> Gryffindor
9- Granger, Hermione -> Gryffindor
10- Neville Longbottom -> Gryffindor
11- MacDougal, Morag -> doesn't say
12- Malfoy -> Slytherin
13- Crabbe -> Slytherin
14- Goyle -> Slytherin
15-Moon -> doesn't say
16- Nott -> doesn't say
17- Parkinson -> doesn't say (but later we find out Slytherin)
18- Patil -> doesn't say
19- Patil -> doesn't say
20- Perks, Sally-Anne -> doesn't say
21- Potter, Harry -> Gryffindor
22- Thomas, Dean -> Gryffindor
23- Turpin, Lisa -> doesn't say
24- Ron -> Gryffindor

That lets us know that at least 3 students were sorted in Hufflepuff, 3 in Ravenclaw, 5 in Slytherin and 8 in Gryffindor (including 1 of the Patil sisters). I'm guessing JKR didn't mention all of the students names getting in the school that year, I think there were probably more.
Let's say that at least 10 kids got into each house, that makes 40 first years, and if there were 10 students per house on each year, that would make 70 students on each house and 280 students in the castle each year... at least!
Of course it depends on how many wizard kids are born each year, but I think it makes a fair estimate...

What do you think? How many students are there in the castle each year?

Well, i forget where i read this, but i heard that JK said there was about 1000 students in Hogwarts! That crazy, but when you think about it... my high school is about 2000 students and its campus is probably smaller than the Hogwarts castle! So it is possible that Hogwarts has 1000 students, but its hard to imagine isnt it? So that would be about... 250 students in each house and about... 35 students in each year (All the houses, not just one house) and about... 8 kids in each year for each house ( give or take)! So that does seem about right!

oops, sorry, i just read your edit... o well!

(i think i did the math right, but im not sure )

on ething that confuses me much is how all the teachers have to teach every student every day. I mean like, in our school s there's like two math teachers per grade, but in hogwarts it's one teacher for all the kids in the castle, and the classes last like and hour each.



and with the size to our high school question, think about this: the high schools don't need to sleep, feed and bathe 2000 students, just stick twenty of them into a room together. in hogwarts they need to give them more space.

Many people have mentioned that there must be more teachers in Hogwarts than are mentioned, strictly because of the workload. Though I am NOT a teacher, I am a student, and I have to say that the students at Hogwarts are required to do a ridiculous amount of work compared to normal students. Well, atleast compared to my school, which is a small private school, nut is consistently rated as one of the toughest schools in my area. SO, based off how much work I have to do, compared with the work the students of Hogwarts do, I would say that they do way more homework thatn I have ever had to do. SO, assuming that the students work harder than normal, I think it is safe to assume that the teachers are expected to do more than the average high school teacher, therefore they should be able to teach more classes, more students, etc. Once again, I would like to say that I am NOT a teacher so I do not know exactly how much work they have to do.