# RateMyProfessors Professors & Schools Scraper (`crawlerbros/ratemyprofessors-scraper`) Actor

Scrape professors and school data from RateMyProfessors. Extract ratings, difficulty, would-take-again %, department, school name, and review counts

- **URL**: https://apify.com/crawlerbros/ratemyprofessors-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Crawler Bros](https://apify.com/crawlerbros) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, Automation, Other
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 0 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $3.00 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event and usage. You are charged both the fixed price for specific events and for Apify platform usage.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## RateMyProfessors Scraper

Scrape public professor and school data from [RateMyProfessors](https://www.ratemyprofessors.com) using the page state already embedded in the site HTML. This actor returns real professor profiles, school matches, ratings metrics, and optional recent-rating snapshots without logging in.

Use it for:

- education-market research
- professor discovery and comparisons
- school discovery by name
- collecting direct professor profile URLs

### Modes

- `searchProfessors`: Search professors globally by name
- `bySchoolProfessors`: Search professors within one school ID
- `searchSchools`: Search schools by name
- `byProfessorIds`: Resolve exact professor IDs
- `byProfessorUrls`: Resolve exact professor profile URLs

### Main Inputs

- `searchQuery`: Search term for professor search modes
- `schoolQuery`: Search term for school search mode
- `schoolId`: Exact RateMyProfessors school ID for bySchoolProfessors
- `professorIds`: Exact professor IDs
- `professorUrls`: Exact professor URLs
- `minRating`: Minimum professor average rating
- `minWouldTakeAgainPercent`: Minimum would-take-again percentage
- `maxDifficulty`: Maximum difficulty
- `departmentContains`: Optional department substring filter
- `countryCodes`: Optional country filter (`US`, `CA`, `GB`)
- `sortBy`: Result sorting
- `includeRatingsSnapshot`: Include first-page rating snapshots on detail lookups
- `maxItems`: Maximum records to emit

### Output

The actor emits `professor`, `school`, or `error` records.

#### Professor fields

- professor ID and direct URL
- first name, last name, full name
- department
- average rating
- number of ratings
- would-take-again percentage
- average difficulty
- school ID, school name, city, state, country code
- course codes
- related professors
- optional ratings snapshot from the professor page

#### School fields

- school ID
- school name
- city and state
- country code
- rounded average school rating
- number of school ratings

### Notes

- This actor uses public HTML pages only.
- No cookies, login, or API key are required.
- Invalid lookup inputs return typed `error` records instead of failing silently.

### Daily Test

The default prefill uses a broad professor-name query that reliably returns live data:

```json
{
  "mode": "searchProfessors",
  "searchQuery": "smith",
  "maxItems": 5
}
```

# Actor input Schema

## `mode` (type: `string`):

Choose what to scrape from RateMyProfessors.

## `searchQuery` (type: `string`):

Professor name search query for searchProfessors or bySchoolProfessors.

## `schoolQuery` (type: `string`):

School-name query for searchSchools mode.

## `schoolId` (type: `string`):

Exact RateMyProfessors school legacy ID for bySchoolProfessors mode.

## `professorIds` (type: `array`):

List of RateMyProfessors professor IDs for byProfessorIds mode.

## `professorUrls` (type: `array`):

List of RateMyProfessors professor profile URLs for byProfessorUrls mode.

## `minRating` (type: `number`):

Only include professors with an average rating at or above this value (0–5).

## `minWouldTakeAgainPercent` (type: `number`):

Only include professors where at least this percentage of students would take them again (0–100).

## `maxDifficulty` (type: `number`):

Only include professors with a difficulty rating at or below this value (0–5).

## `departmentContains` (type: `string`):

Case-insensitive substring filter on the professor's department name.

## `countryCodes` (type: `array`):

Limit results to professors at schools in these countries. Leave empty for all countries. Allowed values: US, CA, GB.

## `sortBy` (type: `string`):

Sort order for professor search results.

## `includeRatingsSnapshot` (type: `boolean`):

Include the first recent ratings from professor detail lookups.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of records to extract.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "mode": "searchProfessors",
  "searchQuery": "smith",
  "countryCodes": [],
  "sortBy": "numRatingsDesc",
  "includeRatingsSnapshot": true,
  "maxItems": 5
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `items` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "mode": "searchProfessors",
    "searchQuery": "smith",
    "sortBy": "numRatingsDesc",
    "includeRatingsSnapshot": true,
    "maxItems": 5
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("crawlerbros/ratemyprofessors-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "mode": "searchProfessors",
    "searchQuery": "smith",
    "sortBy": "numRatingsDesc",
    "includeRatingsSnapshot": True,
    "maxItems": 5,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("crawlerbros/ratemyprofessors-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "mode": "searchProfessors",
  "searchQuery": "smith",
  "sortBy": "numRatingsDesc",
  "includeRatingsSnapshot": true,
  "maxItems": 5
}' |
apify call crawlerbros/ratemyprofessors-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,crawlerbros/ratemyprofessors-scraper"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/mzpnptHCfFKseFWOF/builds/JZnG0oFZqrUcYgJGK/openapi.json