A true-born Slytherin couldn’t believe her result on the Pottermore Ilvermorny quiz, so she decided to investigate and find the truth.

If you’re like me, you were super excited about the announcement of another wizarding school. Not only was our favorite fictional universe expanding, more importantly, we knew we were going to get a new sorting quiz. A new school meant new school houses, more JK Rowling created boxes to put ourselves in.

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If you’re also like me, you undoubtedly had an idea of which house you’d be in, and which you’d not be in. Admittedly, we had limited information to go on for the characteristics of each house, but we had enough baseline to think, “That’s my house!” I was certainly confident which house I’d end up in.

And if you’re thirdly like me, you were completely shocked by your Ilvermorny house result. You may have even been shocked at your Hogwarts placement after the Pottermore revamp. Suddenly your world turned upside down, and you started having an identity crisis. “But that’s not me at all!” you internally (or externally) screamed. Fear not! You probably do know yourself better than a Pottermore quiz. It’s simply a matter of taking the quiz ten times, with your final result being the majority.

I have been a proud Slytherin for most of my Harry Potter fandom years. Most of quizzes I’ve taken since the start of my obsession have placed me with those cunning folk. A close second is typically Ravenclaw. Therefore, upon taking the Ilvermorny quiz, I was all but positive I’d end up in Horned Serpent, the house that values the mind, or I’d possibly get Wampus, the house that values power. Adventure (Thunderbird) has never been a trait of mine, and the welfare of others (Pukwudgie) is a value that trails behind my dominant traits of intellect, logic, ambition, and shrewdness. Imagine my surprise then, when Pottermore sorted me into Pukwudgie.

I stared at the screen in disbelief. I futilely tried to go back and redo the test. Could it be that the person I’ve been for the last decade has changed? Could it be that my core values have changed since taking the Pottermore quiz six months ago? The truth is, yes, it is entirely possible. People do change over the years, especially between your tweens and twenties. Except I couldn’t believe that about myself. I didn’t believe it about myself.

I took the quiz again.

To my relief, I got Horned Serpent. But I still wasn’t satisfied. “What is the truth?” I thought to myself. Being the thorough person I am, I did the quiz ten times. My results were as follows:

Thunderbird: 1

Pukwudgie: 2

Horned Serpent: 6

Wampus: 1

Though not an overwhelming majority, the results are still telling. In the ten times I took the quiz, I only got my first result again once. Why? Because of the particular questions I took.

For some reason, Pottermore only requires you to answer eight of the 27 unique questions in the Ilvermorny quiz. In other words, you don’t get to answer every question they have, nor even most of them. You only get eight randomly assigned questions. So unless your personality overwhelmingly matches one house, you will most likely get different results each time you take it, while presumably getting one or two houses more consistently than the others.

For example, the first time I took the quiz, many of my answers were related to health, so naturally I was placed in Pukwudgie. My questions and answers included:

Would you rather: Hunt or Heal

What would you least like to lose? Health

However, doing the quiz again gave me different questions with different answers, and those answers fell in the Horned Serpent box. I didn’t get either of the two questions above, and I also got ones I hadn’t the first time, such as:

I am strongest when…: I know I’m right

I wish I knew how to…: win

Which would you choose if you could only have one? The power to know the answer to any single question

To prove to myself I’m not some anomaly that fits into multiple houses, I had my mother take the sorting quizzes as well. Her results were even more blurred than mine:

Gryffindor and Pukwudgie

Hufflepuff and Thunderbird

Ravenclaw and Thunderbird

Ravenclaw and Thunderbird

Hufflepuff and Thunderbird

Gryffindor and Pukwudgie

Gryffindor and Pukwudgie

That’s not to mention the various people who were sorted into different Hogwarts houses after Pottermore’s relaunch at the beginning of the year, even if they answered the same way.

By not answering most or all of the questions, Pottermore’s data on you is incomplete, so it isn’t able to know the full range of your personality and your result is likely to be incorrect a few times. True, people have dominant traits from multiple houses, therefore they could very well fit in more than one house. However, people can also very much not fit into a house. The fact I’ve gotten Gryffindor, not just once, but multiple times in the Hogwarts sorting quiz is laughable, and makes it clear that these sorting tests need more than eight questions to get a more accurate result.

One batch of eight questions is not reflective enough of your character, so if you at all question a house you’ve been placed in, I encourage you to take the quiz again. Then again. And keep at it until you feel there’s a satisfactory standout. Odds are you know yourself better than Pottermore’s eight questions.

Have your Pottermore sorting results surprised you?