On October 16, 2000, J.K. Rowling gave a live interview on Scholastic.com with classrooms across America, which were allowed to ask her questions about the books up until then (at the time, Goblet of Fire), one of the earliest of these kinds of interviews with J.K.
When a student asked, “How many students attend Hogwarts, and how many students per year per house?” she replied, simply, “There are about a thousand students at Hogwarts.”
And because she said it, this has persisted as the proper answer accepted by most fans. But I don’t see how that could be correct.
So, let’s do the math. There are four houses at Hogwarts, so if there are 1000 students, that means each house has 250 students in it (1000 divided by 4). There are 7 years at Hogwarts. So, if there are 250 students in each house, that means there are approximately 36 students in each year in each house (250 divided by 7 equals 35.7).
That means, if we assume there are approximately the same number of boys and girls in each year, that there are approximately 18 boys in Harry’s year. But besides Harry, throughout all seven books, we’ve only ever seen four others (Ron, Neville, Seamus and Dean).
Another thing, we don’t see a lot of actual classes at Hogwarts, but we see some in the course of Harry’s adventures, and others are mentioned. On page 135 of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (page 100 of Philosopher’s Stone), Harry asks what class they have next, and Ron replies, “Double potions”. We can’t tell for sure from the books, but I’ve always assumed that “double potions” meant two houses together, as well as a double class time period. In any event, we can be sure from the books that a double class means the students of two houses together.
But that means, if we use the counts from above, that there would be about 72 kids in double potions class. That sounds like way more kids than would fit or could be handled in one classroom, even by Snape.
And, we’ve seen McGonagall call all her students into the Gryffindor common room for important announcements. I can see 70 kids stuffed into that room, but 250?
I know the movies are not cannon, but they also disagree with the above numbers.
This is an image from Sorcerer’s Stone, from the sorting feast, the second before food appears on the table, and on some of the rows you can quite clearly count the number of empty plates on the tables (click on the image above to see the full-size image). As you can see, in the rows that can be completely counted, there are 33 plates on each side of the table, which would make 66 students per table. Even if that shot is not of the complete dining hall floor, it is certainly most of it, and even if there are few plates in the foreground that we cannot see, it still places the number of students per table in the 66-70 range.
I believe there are, indeed, 70 students at each table. Here is how I calculate the Hogwarts math:
We know that there are, including Harry, five Gryffindor boys in Harry’s year at Hogwarts. Assuming that there are the same number of girls as boys, that means there are 10 students in Harry’s year in Gryffindor at Hogwarts. Since there are 7 years, that means there are 70 Gryffindor students total at Hogwarts, and since there are 4 houses, that means there are only 280 students all together at Hogwarts. Quite a different number than J.K.’s thousand.
The number of students in our double potions class now makes a lot more sense, 10 Gyrffindors and 10 Slytherins makes 20 students, a very normal student class size, especially for a “lab” kind of course.
Another scene in the movie kind of agrees with my Hogwarts math.
This is the scene where the first years are following Percy up the stairs to Gryffindor Tower for the first time. If you look closely, not counting Percy who is right-most in the picture, there are 13 students. A few more than the 10 in my math, but a lot closer to my number than the 36 in J.K.’s count.
Do you think this count of 280 makes sense, or do you think there is evidence in the books that, as J.K. said, there are more students at Hogwarts?
And, if there are only 280 students at Hogwarts, how does that speak to the general population count of Wizards to Muggles? If there are only 280 kids in Hogwarts, how many wizarding families could there be in Britain? Or is it possible there are other wizarding schools besides Hogwarts?
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i think there must have been much less than 1000 pupils there only seemed to be 1 teacher per subject theres no way that one teacher could teach that many pupils
Very good point, but it’s not conclusive one way or the other. The exact quote is “If you’ve got a problem sharing a dormitory with me, go ask McGonagall if you can be moved, stop your mummy worrying–”
So, he doesn’t say “moved to another Gryffindor 5th year dormitory”. He just says moved somewhere else. He could be moved to an underclassman dorm (a drag, but if you really can’t live with someone…) or perhaps into a room that isn’t even a regular dorm at all. Since it was only suggested in anger and we’ve never actually seen someone move, we can’t know for sure.
Like I said above, I don’t think ther can be a 1000 students at Hogwarts. There may be more students in other houses and years, but I’m convinced ther were only five boys in Gryffindor in Harry’s year.
Ithil
I don’t think they were sharing cauldrons in potions. The only instance in which they were said to shared was the first lesson in SS/PS. Also, it was said that there were 20 broomsticks on the ground for the Gryffindors’ and Slytherin’s first fling lessons. I don’t think they were planning to share broomsticks.
Someone made a very good point above about waiting for the hat to sort everyone. I would guess students could only wait for 60 students at the most to be sorted each year.
Chris made some good points, but I think that at least up to third year, there are only twelve subjects offered at Hogwarts: Transfiguration, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Potions, Astronomy, History of Magic, and Herbology, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Divination, Care of Magical Creatures, and Muggle Studies. Hermione is said to have signed up for every subject in her third year and she only did these twelve. Flying lessons do not seem to be official, whole year lessons, so I don’t think they are included. There might be other subjects offered in higher years, but I don’t think so because it is never mentioned at all that students learn music or different languages. I think Rowling would have put that in the books if she had intended it. Maybe there were clubs for these types of activities, like the Gobstones club. This makes me think that Harry interacted with every Gryffindor in his year, so there can not be 1000 students at Hogwarts.
I think everyone’s comments are well reasoned and valid. It is difficult for any author of a fictional universe to be 100% consistent. JKR gives us glimpses and hints but it is the story that takes priority rather than the quantitative details.
One limitation that comes to mind is the demographics of the Potterverse. Assumptions of the marriage patterns, birth rate and family size in the wizarding world are difficult. Extrapolating muggle demographics into the Potterverse is probably not valid. The British wizarding community as described by JKR has a different demographic profile. First, there seems to be a large number of unmarried adults in the wizarding world. The Hogwarts staff, many Ministry workers and many wizards we meet do not have their own families. Therefore, the wizard birth rate would probably be much lower than the muggle rate. Complicating an estimate of the wizard birth rate is the addition of muggle born wizards (such as Hermione and Lily) to the wizarding population. Although a minority, we don’t know what percentage of wizards are muggle born.
Wizards and witches live longer lives than muggles, the estimate of 100 years life expectancy is probably about right. This would result in a much higher average age and increase the living population.
JKR also describes the diminishing opportunities for pure blood marriages. The Weasleys seem to be the only productive pure blood family left. The Blacks are fading out (Scorpius and Teddy are the only Black descendants of their generation). If it weren’t for half-blood and muggle born children, the wizarding population would become extinct.
As JKR writes in the books, Hogwarts has been running for 1000 years and has (for at least a century or two) been at a near constant enrollment. There are no new dormitories, facilities or other signs of growth. There are also no signs that the school is larger than it needs to be for current enrollment. Of course magic could be used to periodically reorder the castle to be “just right” for the current enrollment. This would imply that the population of wizards as a whole is about the same over time.
Our view of the Hogwarts world is mostly from the Gryffindor POV and my impression from the books’ description of the common room is that a house larger than 70 students seems unlikely. There is only one fireplace and one small entrance. The Trio often find themselves alone even at reasonable hours. This may just be a literary inconsistency so the Trio can do the mischief required for the plot.
I watched the other day the Order of the Phoenix. It was the scene for the charms exam in the great hall. By my reconing they wer 4 rows of desks with 15-20 in each row = 60 – 80 kids in the 5th year. times this by 7 years makes 420 – 560 in the school as a whole. any one agree?
ive always thought there were a very small amount at hogwarts and i think around 200-300 would be a reasonable guess, i dont think there would be 1000, but in GoF, jk writes, describing the amount of witches and wizards at the quidditch world cup ‘a hundred thousand witches and wizards’, so if there are that many witches and wizards from around the world, i think it could be possible that there are a lot of people at hogwarts.
also, at my school when we have 2 periods of the same subject together, we call it a ‘double period’ so i always assumed that ‘double potions’ was two periods. i also always thought that ALL classes had two houses in it, cause they always say ‘potions with the slytherins’ or ‘herbology with the hufflepuffs’.
Well, perhaps this is just me trying to defend J.K’s statements, but perhaps there is less people in Gryffindor as not so many are brave and all that other kind of stuff, i expect that hufflepuff would have the most students, as helga hufflepuffs house takes students no matter what, while Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Slytherin have certain qualities they are looking for… I dont think it would be safe to assume that the students are divided evenly, which i think we experiance in one of the books but i cant remember.
Great article again. I think 280 count is well calculated, there are 280~ students in Hogwarts. I think there are a lot of wizarding schools in the Rowling’s world.
Lets say half of the Wizards marry with Muggles, and other half marry with each other. A family has 2 kids overall so 280/7 = 40 students per year. 40/2= 20 families needed for one year. Families are made by 2 people, so we need 30 wizards and 10 muggles for a year. Lets say, a wizard will have a baby when he/she is overall 27 years old (fair isn’t it?), so we need 27 years to make other births. 27×30 is 810 wizards. Do we have 810 wizards in the world? I don’t think so.
I could say, 1 school is enough for England in this numbers don’t you agree? How many English/England-related wizards are in HP World?
I think the counts reflect well of the movie. But, movies often times condense content so as not to overwhelm the viewer with something that goes just fine in a book.
It would be interesting to see Dave’s numbers projected out against the population of England compared with JKR’s numbers. How many families and wizards/witches are there really in the country? The world? Is the Statute of Secrecy protecting a small portion of the population, or a large one? If it is too small, it would just fade away; too large, and there would be no need for the SoS!
I totally agree with the article. I’ve been thinking about his for a while too, and I ended up with around 300 students. Ten in every year for every house, what would be 10 x 7 x 4, and that’s… 280, and to make it a round number 300, ’cause it’s possible that a few more or less, it would be pretty odd if every year exactly 40 new students arrived at Hogwarts.
Besides, if there were 250 students in every house, the common rooms have to be huge.
And about the ‘double potions’ thing: I think means two hours and not two houses together, because in my opinion, every class there are two houses together (of the same year). That would be 10 x 2 = 20 students, that’s quite a normal number. I’m quite sure I’ve read it somewhere in the books, or at least something that would assume it…
I’m sure the article is much more likely than JKR’s estimate, but really, she probably never thought of it until the student asked her, so a thousand would be the best number she thought of at the top of her head. I’m sure that a first year, when writing home, would guess the same amount. The grandeur of the place and the new faces would suggest as much.
i dunno, i alway imagined hogwarts with at least 1000 students, is it not possible that the students are divided unevenlly among the houses?
I too, am sceptical of this analysis. If Rowling said about 1000, this should be right, she planned it out didn’t she? I do admit you’d end up with huge class groups, but seeing that Hogwarts is not a Muggle High School, should we really compare? Couldn’t we just as easily compare with University, where classes are thaught to hunderds of students at the same time?
Okay, there’s only eight Gryffindors in Harry’s year that we know of (Harry, Ron, Seamus, Dean, Neville, Hermione, Lavender and Parvati) but maybe it just wasn’t a great year for Gryffindors. And true, we don’t see that many characters intoduced in the books, but look at you own situation at school. Do you know everybody that studies there? I don’t think you do, do you? There’s a group of friends, a group of foes and an awfull bunch of familiar but unidentified faces. Should you really base part of your plea on the number of identified students there are?
I admit having 1000 Hogwarts Students would complicate a lot, but having only a mere 300… It seems so little to me. I rather think Rowling inteded for at least 1000 students to be at Hogwarts, because wizarding community would be too small otherwise, but never really figured out (or bothered to) how to show that huge amount in the books. I really don’t think she cared about the mathematics or maximum student numbers in classes.
Harry’s birth-year could just as easily have a very low birth rate, so there’s little students in his year, and that’s why they pair houses up for classes. And really, I don’t think every house gets roughly the same number of students…
(And probably, I just don’t want to budge, because I’ve been fighting similars pleas for years now, I can’t help but persist in defending my opinion)
Well I think that J.K. is right but only from the counting of the BOOKS.The movies are completely different then the books. They couldnt have that many people for a movie so they settle with a smaller number of people.
Also there are different wizarding schools. For example Durmstrang and Beuxbatons. There must be more schools than that also because in HP and the GoF when Harry is at the Quidditch World Cup Harry says he sees kids about his age he didnt know. Then he realizes there are kids from different schools because Hogwarts couldn’t be the only one.
We must remember that there are not even numbers of students in every house. Taking Harry’s year for example, we see there are 5 boys and 3 girls in Gryffindor, however in Slytherin, there is a smaller number of students in their year. There are only 4 boys and 2 girls, noted. So, it is impossible to estimate how many students there are, since we don’t know the exact number of any given year. Also, maybe 1000 she meant it had the capacity to hold 1000, not the actual present student body.
As an additional note about the number of wizarding families. We are told in Deathly Hallows that it is not mandatory to send your child to Hogwarts. There are those who go abroad and those who are home-schooled, just like in the Muggle world of schools.
JKR has definitely said that she is bad at maths: in her Black family tree we see that she has accidentally put some people as having children at the age of 13 (this is the men, who traditionally marry older than females). Also, in PS/SS, “there weren’t many people left” to sort when the Sorting Hat got to “Moon”. In fact, there are only ten people sorted after Moon. Having about 130 people with last names in alphabetical order before “Moon” is surely defying all odds.
There were 12 people in Harry’s HBP potions class. These were all the people who got E’s and O’s on their OWLs and wanted to do Potions. There are 40 people in my grade at school and 12 is an average-sized class (there are four subjects on each line). This suggests to me that there are about 40 people in the grade, perhaps a bit more because potions was quite unpopular with non-Slytherins.
I’ve always been confused in the sixth book, harry and ron take 9 subjects for their O.W.L.s and Hermione takes 11. However, Hermione dropped out of divination and muggle studies but takes arithmancy and ancient runes, so that means she took ten subjects because, Harry and Rons subects – Divination = 8 + ancient runes + arithmancy = ten. I know this isn’t to do with number of students but it is maths, so, does anyone know if there is a extra subject hermione does, or if I’m just wrong, please say because I really want to work it out!
Ophelia: Divination doesn’t count; Harry and Ron failed that exam and they didn’t want to continue with the subject. So it looks like you are short one subject for all three, not just Hermione.
harry and ron dropped Divination only for NEWT level i.e. sixth year onwards. they took it for OWLs and failed. so indeed hermione passed 11 OWLs with 10 outstandings (charms, Care of magical creatures, Transfiguration, Potions, Herbology, History of Magic, Astronomy, Arithmancy and Ancient Runes) and 1 Exceeds Expectations in DADA.
sorry Ophelia, it is really ten subjects not 11 of hermione, seems my maths has gone all haywire. while it says ten Os and 1 EE in HBP for Hermione (I counted DADA in both), only ten subjects have been mentioned in OOP during OWLs. can someone help there?
Thanks for the comments, but I think only J.K.Rowling can tell us the real answer, maybe there is another subject that she has Hermione doing in her head?
JKR said 1000 at first and then 600. I would believe 600 but i still think its a bit too high still. In Chamber of Secrets it said in chapter 6-ish “Professor Sprout was standing behind a trestle bench in the center of the greenhouse. About twenty pairs of different-colored ear muffs were lying on the bench.”
This is a double class with the hufflepuffs. so doing all the math u still get about 280 students. unless only half the huffle and gryff 2nd years are in this class period then 600 is more reasonable. I know JKR said she’s bad with numbers, but if thats the case, she should have spent more time making them as accurate and believable as possible.
all in all, it seems to me that hogwarts has no fewer than 280 kids, but not likely more than 600.
Ophelia – Actually, I took it to mean that you don’t have to take the class in order to do the exam. Bill and Percy both got 12 OWLs, and it has been greatly implied that there would not be enough time in the schedule to have taken 12 classes � as Hermione tried to do in Prisoner of Azkaban, and needed a time-turner to pull it off. So, even though she was not in the Muggle Studies class, she still could have taken the exam, and, of course, would have gotten an O. That’s her 11th OWL even though she only took 10 classes.
I think there’s around 300. I mean in philosphers stone when they took their first flying lessons with the slytherins, there were 20 brooms, so if there’s 10 gryffindor and 10 slytherin first years, there’s 140 gryffindors and slytherins. with hufflepuff and ravenclaw there’s about 280.
i’m not sure eitherway but i was (re)reading GoF and in the chapter “The Yule ball” came across “The House tables had vanished; instead, there were about a hundred smaller, lantern-lit ones, each seating about a dozen people.”
as we know karkaroff came with 12 students, so did madam maxime i.e. additional 26, and add for musicians etc. from the weird sisters, still it will left too many seats if there were fewer strudents which implies that really there must have been around 1000 students (i shall rather call inhabitants) in hogwarts.
Well, a double class that I’ve always taken means double the time period, not that freshman and seniors were in a class together. So it still could fit to have 36 in a class. And the idea that because there are five boys and girls in Harry’s house for his year doesn’t necessarily mean that every year and every house garners the same number. Although I do think that when Jo mentions a thousand, she didn’t have the numbers exact in her head as to how she reached that number.
Hey, I’d just like to say I don’t think there are necessarily going to be the same amount of people in each dorm as there are in Harry’s. I know you said approximately, but, for example, with the Gryffindor Girls of Harry’s year we only ever meet Hermione, Lavender and Parvarti. In Malfoys dorm there are only himself, Crabbe and Goyle. This is just what I think and even if you do account for wwhat I’ve just said your guess is closer than “one thousand”. JK probably hadn’t thought it over this much.
I have allways thought that the number of students was a bit bougus, I mean; also with the prefect system; how does it work?
Anyway, I think that the no. of pupils is around 500 with around 250 teachers. But there is evedence against that, in ‘Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets’ When Hermione and Harry go into the teachers study; it is described as a normal room with a small fireplace; to small for the Floo-Network.
But yet again in ‘Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire’ the book says that “Hundreds of students will try to put their name down” But then it says youve got to be of age ( 17 yrs old ) So this refers to SOME students in 6th yr and students in 7th year. Now to give the school a fighting chance, there must be at least 100 students in the 7th year and possibly 50 in the 6th yr. together that is around 150 students of age in Hogwarts.
Also; in the Books and the movies (this is the only thing they have in common) Harry, Ron and Hermione hardly ever pass any other students in the corridors or bathrooms.
I don’t actually think it matters about the maths. Put it this way, I would have imagined that there are maybe a few more than actually mentioned – random names came up frequently in the books. I don’t think it would be possible to mention over 500 peoples names (250 in Gryffindor + 100 x 3 for the other houses) so perhaps she has just stuck to a few prominent names.
Also a point to mention is that this is just a suggestion as to howmany there are – it is up to you and your imagination to discover how many there are.
This is a difficult one. Is there a right answer? Do we go with JKR herself or the books that she wrote?
In any case, we can all agree that there is a discrepency. David’s math is completely correct.
I think it comes down to one simple thing. JKR must have always envisioned 1000 students in her school, because this is a more realistic number. However it would have hurt the story (by weakening each side character) to have to introduce 30 other guys bunking with Ron and Harry. Even Dean, Seamus, Lavender, and Parvati were kind of secondary; no one really cared too much about them.
So realistically, JKR made a writer’s move that deviated slightly from reality. She needed a smaller number of characters to work with to strengthen her story, but Hogwarts would be much less impressive as a tiny little shack next to a lake.
double potions means that its a double period and it goes for twice as long
I always thought double potions meant a doulbe period, like it does in normal schools. All classes hav 2 houses in them, such as herbology, thats with hufflepuff, but its never described as “double herbology” (I think)
Also I have always thought there were 10 pupils in each house in each year, but i did notice while I was reading CoS that, during the Gryffndor/Slytherin quidditch game that there were “a hundred” people supporting slytherin…
Ok, lets say there were 1000 students. That means that’s approx. 145 per year (1000 divided by seven). Think about it in terms of sorting, say it takes an average of two minutes to sort someone (some are decided instantly, others take ages) then that’s 290 minutes or almost five hours! Even if it took an insanely short amount of time to sort someone then I think you would be pushing two hours at best. Now I don’t think anyone could expect a room of hungry children to sit that long!
Excellent point!
I found something else! On page 218 of OotP when Harry and Seamus are fighting Harry tells Seamus to go to Professor McGonagall and get moved to another boys bedroom, which suggests that there is more than one 5th year boys’ dorm! So if this is true for the whole school, then it could easily have 1000 students!
Well also once the third year starts they get to pick their own classes so if you think about it the classes after that could really be smaller but still with 1000 students. I’m still not sure which to believe but some of these guys have a point when they say JKR planned it out. But 300 students does seem a little bit of a low number, especially considering the size of the school. Just my thoughts.
Also if the student-teacher ratio thing applies to Hogwarts their should be about 16 students per teacher. If you look at all the different subjects, that also means that their has to be a fair few teachers. But I don’t know if my math is correct that is still only, lets say their is 30 subjects, that means their is only 480 students. Sounds a bit better than 300 but still not as good as 750. I think 750 would be a bit of a better number than 1000.
Maybe the castle’s so big because there used to be a bigger wizarding population and therefore more students? They’re always going on about how there’s not so many pure blood wizards…
Dave-
of course it’s not definite. we can never know for sure because jk never told us directly. just thought i’d bring it up since no one else had. your theory is as good as mine or anyone else’s but i thought it was a nice bit of info that suggested the possibility of lots of unmentioned students.
Ok here goes. I didn’t read all comments as I just got tired of everyone going back and forth.
Hogwart’s was designed to house ~1000 students (lot’s of unused classrooms). But remember Voldemort was running around for several years before Harry was born. In war times we (people) tend to procreate with fewer results. Hence, the classes get smaller. Those students who would have joined during Harry’s 4th year would have been considered boomer babies. But at this point we begin to see declining numbers of enrollments. Why? Voldie is back and therefore parents are keeping the kids at home. So, in the 97-98 school year Voldie is dead, and there should have been record enrollments.
How many larger schools have you ever been to that only had ONE math teacher or ONE history teacher?
During the seven books there is talk of wizards dying out. That should mean LESS than a normal amount. The castle itself is magically enhanced (like Mr Weasely’s car) to “fit” the amount of students? We are only following Harry and co. Plus they started using short cut to get around the castle. *ugh* We Muggles simply cannot plot this out! The castle is Unplottable. Check your prop Marauder’s Map for North and south to see what I mean;)!
i dont think you can realy use the film as evidence seen as how books are ALWAYS different to the movies…
and why do you assume that that THE WHOLE of gryfindoor and slytherin are in one double potion class… take my school for example, we have 1250 pupils and not everyone in my year has the same lesson at the same time… so where half of a year of gryfindoor have potions at the same time as part of slytherin… isnt it possible that the other halves have potions at another time…
also… this is hogwarts! im sure if they have an enchanted sky as a ceiling they can fit about 1000 students!
i dont htink so, i mean you cannot go by the movie. there are a lot many things that have not been spoken about in the book, that does not mean that they dont exist. just like she turns off the months within a few lines or pages she could have ignored all those people in his class as well as the other parts as they might not be as important as to be spoken about. maybe they were not in harrys friend circle.
Well personaly, I think you have way to much free time. But I agree with you more then J.K on this because if you think about it Hogwarts is kind of a private school(only magical kids are accepted) which generly have less students then public. But on the other hand, there are only 5 boys in Harry’s year in Griffindor, But who says there’s the about the same amount in other houses. Griffindor is for the brave, so I think there would be less students in Griffindor then, say in Hufflepuff(students with no amazing talent).The movies are not always accurate but do what looks best, so they probily made the same amount of students and plates in each house. So I agree but also disagree with your math.
I don’t know if this has already been pointed out, but in PoA in the quidditch final it mentions there being around 200 slytherin students.
“Behind the Slytherin goalposts, however, two hundred people were wearing green;”
Then earlier in the paragraph it says;
“Three-quarters of the crowd were wearing scarlet rosettes,”
So by this I think we can assume there are 800 students.
Its at the top of page 225 if anyone wants to check.
You know, I just think this is something J.K. hasn’t really thought through. Because it is also in PoA and in GoF that Harry walks into the sleeping dorms at Hogwarts and he think to himself how great it is to see those 5 beds again. So that would mean 5 boys per year and 5 girls per year. 10×7= 70. And there are 4 houses. So 4×70= 280. That would mean there are 280 students at Hogwarts.
I totally agree with Claudia, Like we don’t have the same amount of students in each class there could 3 or 4 more in the other years and other houses. So you can say that there are approximately 300 students at hogwarts. well…maybe j.k didn’t think that someone would even think about how maby students there are at hogwarts.
As far as quidditch world cup is considered, their children must have gone to Durmstrang or fleur’s school.
I’ve always assumed that there were 280 students at Hogwarts, just like the article says. I knew of the five Gryffindor boys in Harry’s year (Harry, Ron, Neville, Dean, and Seamus) and assumed they were the only ones. They never mention any other boys in any of the books OR the movies. Then, assuming that there are the same number of boys as girls (as there should be), there should be 5 girls including Hermione and one of the Patil girls. Then, assuming all seven grades have 10 students, that equals 70 students per house. And each house can’t have a different number of students, can it? So 70 times four equals 280 students. I think the movie depicts this correctly in some spots, but highly over exaggerates this number in others.