What does GreatSchools Reviews Scraper do?

Introduction

GreatSchools.org is the leading U.S. school ratings and reviews platform used by millions of parents, educators, and researchers. It provides comprehensive school profiles, ratings, and community reviews for K-12 schools across the United States.

Scraper Overview

This Actor extracts structured review data from GreatSchools school profile pages. It uses an efficient HTTP-only approach (no browser required) by parsing embedded JSON data directly from page source, making it fast and cost-effective.

Key Features

• No browser needed — Uses CheerioCrawler for fast, lightweight HTTP scraping
• Automatic pagination — Follows all review pages automatically
• Multiple schools — Process many school URLs in a single run
• Configurable limits — Set max reviews per school and total request limits
• Structured output — Clean, normalized data ready for analysis
• Proxy support — Works with Apify Proxy or custom proxy configuration

Input and Output Specifications

Example Input URLs

Any GreatSchools school URL works — both profile and review page formats:

• https://www.greatschools.org/california/los-angeles/8534-WISH-Community-School/
• https://www.greatschools.org/california/los-angeles/8534-WISH-Community-School/reviews/
• https://www.greatschools.org/new-york/new-york/1234-Some-School/

Input Format

{
    "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.greatschools.org/california/los-angeles/8534-WISH-Community-School/" }],
    "maxReviewsPerSchool": 100,
    "maxRequestsPerCrawl": 200,
    "maxConcurrency": 5,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true
    }
}

Output Fields

Each review record contains:

Field	Type	Description
schoolName	string	Name of the school
schoolId	integer	GreatSchools internal school ID
schoolUrl	string	URL to school profile page
reviewId	integer	Unique review identifier
reviewerType	string	Reviewer category (parent, teacher, student, community member)
reviewerTypeLabel	string	Full human-readable reviewer type label
starRating	integer	Overall star rating (1-5)
reviewDate	string	Human-readable date (e.g., "March 24, 2019")
reviewDateRaw	string	ISO 8601 timestamp
reviewText	string	Full text of the review comment
topicalRatings	array	Topic-specific ratings (homework, teachers, character, leadership, learning differences, bullying)
wouldRecommend	boolean	Whether the reviewer recommends the school
schoolResponse	string	Official school response, if any
sourceUrl	string	The review page URL that was scraped
scrapedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp of when the data was collected

Example Output

{
    "schoolName": "WISH Community School",
    "schoolId": 8534,
    "schoolUrl": "https://www.greatschools.org/california/los-angeles/8534-WISH-Community-School/",
    "reviewId": 3934418,
    "reviewerType": "parent",
    "reviewerTypeLabel": "Parent/Guardian",
    "starRating": 5,
    "reviewDate": "January 15, 2024",
    "reviewDateRaw": "2024-01-15T09:30:00-08:00",
    "reviewText": "This school has been amazing for our family...",
    "topicalRatings": [
        {
            "topic": "Homework",
            "topicLabel": "Amount of homework",
            "answerLabel": "This school has an effective approach to homework:",
            "rating": 4,
            "answer": "agree",
            "comment": null
        },
        {
            "topic": "Teachers",
            "topicLabel": "Teacher effectiveness",
            "answerLabel": "Teachers at this school are effective:",
            "rating": 5,
            "answer": "strongly_agree",
            "comment": "The teachers truly care about every student."
        }
    ],
    "wouldRecommend": true,
    "schoolResponse": null,
    "sourceUrl": "https://www.greatschools.org/california/los-angeles/8534-WISH-Community-School/reviews/",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-03-03T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Use Cases

• Sentiment analysis — Analyze parent and community sentiment about schools
• School reputation monitoring — Track rating changes over time
• District-level aggregation — Compare schools within a district
• Research datasets — Build structured datasets for education research
• Real estate insights — Correlate school reviews with property data
• Topical analysis — Break down feedback by categories (homework, teachers, bullying, etc.)

Contact

If you encounter any issues or have feature requests, feel free to reach out via my Apify profile.