# QS World University Rankings Scraper (`parseforge/qs-world-rankings-scraper`) Actor

Pull the QS World University Rankings for institutions worldwide by year or country. Each row returns the rank, institution, country, overall score, academic and employer reputation, citations per faculty, and international faculty and student shares. Built for academic benchmarking.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/parseforge/qs-world-rankings-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [ParseForge](https://apify.com/parseforge) (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 $5.43 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#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

![ParseForge Banner](https://github.com/ParseForge/apify-assets/blob/ad35ccc13ddd068b9d6cba33f323962e39aed5b2/banner.jpg?raw=true)

## 🎓 QS World University Rankings Scraper

> 🚀 **Export the full QS World University Rankings in seconds. Rank, institution, country, overall score, academic and employer reputation, citations and faculty metrics.**

The QS World University Rankings Scraper turns the public [topuniversities.com](https://www.topuniversities.com/world-university-rankings) data surface into a clean, structured dataset ready for analytics, BI, and downstream automation. It calls the public endpoints, normalizes the response, and flattens each record into one row.

This actor is read-only and uses only publicly available data. No login is required.

| 🎯 Target Audience | 💡 Primary Use Cases |
|---|---|
| 📊 Analysts | Build datasets for analytics and reports |
| 🏢 Operations teams | Pipe records into BI dashboards |
| 🎓 Researchers | Mirror data into local analysis tools |
| 🤖 ML engineers | Generate training sets without writing client code |
| 📰 Journalists | Verify facts quickly with structured output |
| 👩‍💻 Developers | Skip the boilerplate of building a custom client |

### 📋 What the QS World University Rankings Scraper does

- Calls the public topuniversities.com endpoints with the filters you supply.
- Parses the response and flattens each record into a flat row.
- Cleans verbose source keys into stable snake or camelCase names.
- Surfaces upstream errors as a single-row error record instead of crashing.
- Exports tabular output in every format the Apify dataset supports.

> 💡 **Why it matters:** topuniversities.com exposes valuable public data, but pulling it into a spreadsheet or warehouse usually means writing client code, managing pagination, and parsing nested responses. This actor wraps all of that.

### 📊 Data fields

Each record includes: `academicRep`, `citationsPerFaculty`, `city`, `country`, `employerRep`, `institution`, `internationalFaculty`, `internationalStudents`, `overallScore`, `rank`, `region`, `scrapedAt`, `stars`, `url`, `year`. All 15 field names come from a real production run, so what you see here is what lands in your dataset.

> ⚠️ **Good to Know.** Free users are auto-limited to 10 records per run. Paid users can pull up to 1,000,000.

### 🚀 How to use

1. Click **Try for free**.
2. Pick filters or leave defaults.
3. Click **Start**. Within seconds, your dataset is ready.
4. Download or pipe to your warehouse.

### 🔗 Recommended Actors

| Actor | What it does |
|---|---|
| [ParseForge OurAirports Scraper](https://apify.com/parseforge/ourairports-scraper) | Global airport database. |
| [ParseForge Alpha Vantage Scraper](https://apify.com/parseforge/alpha-vantage-public-scraper) | Stocks, FX, crypto, and indicators. |
| [ParseForge NBA Stats Scraper](https://apify.com/parseforge/nba-stats-scraper) | Player and team stats from NBA.com. |
| [ParseForge CurseForge Mods Scraper](https://apify.com/parseforge/curseforge-mods-scraper) | Public mod metadata from CurseForge. |

> 💡 **Pro Tip.** Browse the complete [ParseForge collection](https://apify.com/parseforge) for 900+ production grade scrapers across business intelligence, real estate, e-commerce, sports, finance, and public records.

**Disclaimer.** This actor scrapes only publicly available data. ParseForge is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of the third party services referenced. Users are responsible for complying with the target site terms of service and applicable law. [Create a free account w/ $5 credit](https://console.apify.com/sign-up?fpr=vmoqkp).

### 🆘 Need Help?

If you hit a bug, have questions about setup, or need a scraper we haven't built yet, open our [contact form](https://tally.so/r/BzdKgA) or write to parseforge@protonmail.com. We also take on paid custom data projects.

For faster answers, join our [Discord](https://parseforge.co/discord). It's the best place to get support and suggest new actors.

# Actor input Schema

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

How many universities to collect per run.

## `year` (type: `string`):

Ranking year to fetch.

## `country` (type: `string`):

Optional country name filter (e.g. United States, United Kingdom).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "maxItems": 10,
  "year": "2025"
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (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 = {
    "maxItems": 10
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("parseforge/qs-world-rankings-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 = { "maxItems": 10 }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("parseforge/qs-world-rankings-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

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

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

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "maxItems": 10
}' |
apify call parseforge/qs-world-rankings-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=parseforge/qs-world-rankings-scraper",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/3CiGuYwJYqlulEOpM/builds/hf2ZQ3koyyHg81kbk/openapi.json