There's perhaps nothing more satisfying than a good burger. 

With the utmost journalistic integrity, we conducted painstaking research to figure out the very best burger in every state and Washington, DC, from mom-and-pop shops to celebrity-chef restaurants and everything in between.

Based on accolades, reviews, awards, and our own stomachs, we came up with a comprehensive list so that you can devour a truly great burger anywhere in the US.

Additional research and writing by Alyson Penn.

SEE ALSO: 50 places you should travel to in 2016

ALABAMA: Vicki's Lunch Van, in Montgomery, is known for its burger, the king of lunch foods. Called the best burger in the state by Alabama.com, Vicki's burger has a perfect, crispy char and a juicy interior.

Vicki's Lunch Van

ALASKA: Tommy's Burger Stop serves sky-high beef patties topped with all sorts of goodies, from deep-fried jalapeno peppers to onion rings to everyone's favorite: bacon. The Stella Bleu Burger alone — a blue-cheese-oozing monster — is worth a trip to Anchorage.

Tommy's Burger Stop

ARIZONA: Rehab Burger Therapy can fix what ails you. With multiple accolades under its belt, this Scottsdale eatery is known for its outlandishly spicy burger combinations, like the ghost burger (with ghost pepper jack cheese) and the no-explanation-needed jalapeno popper burger.

Rehab Burger Therapy

No one knows good books better than the people who read them.

Book recommendation sharing website Goodreads just released its 2015 Goodreads Choice Awards, the only major book awards chosen by readers themselves.

Goodreads users rated books that were published this year in a number of genres; the highest-rated book in each was declared the winner.

Keep scrolling to see the best books from 2015.

SEE ALSO: 25 books that will blow your mind

FICTION: "Go Set a Watchman" by Harper Lee

In the sequel to "To Kill a Mockingbird," Scout Finch, now 26, returns to Alabama from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. When she learns some unsavory information about her family and her hometown, it stirs up old memories in what was then a region stuck in the middle of the tense Civil Rights movement.

Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman" continues the stories of Maycomb, Alabama's most beloved characters.

Buy the book here »

NONFICTION: "Modern Romance" by Aziz Ansari and Eric Klinenberg

In "Modern Romance," comedian Aziz Ansari and sociologist Eric Klinenberg take a hilarious and intelligent look at what it's like to date in the digital age.

Speaking both on- and off-stage with fans from around the world, Ansari and Klinenberg examine the way in which dating has changed over the last few decades, and how the internet has made it better... or worse. Ansari injects his own humor and personal experience into this exploration of love and the paradox of choice.

Buy the book here »

MYSTERY/THRILLER: "The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins

Every day Rachel takes the commuter train to London, and every day she passes the same house occupied by a couple who seem perfect. Rachel gives them names and even makes up a backstory about their life together. That is, until one day, when the train passes by and Rachel sees something disturbing. She becomes wrapped up in the lives of people she only knew in her imagination, who it turns out may not be so perfect after all.

Hawkins' "Girl on the Train" is a masterful thriller that chills from beginning to end.

Buy the book here »

We have good news and bad news: You still can't go to Hogwarts — but you can attend a wizarding school in California started by a real-world Dumbledore. 

Rayburn Tours, a company that takes students on custom-made educational trips across the globe, put together a list of some of the most unusual and unconventional schools around the world. 

At Iceland's Elf School, students become experts on 13 different types of elves, while at the Brooklyn Free School in New York, students can take classes on their favorite TV shows. Abo Elementary School in New Mexico was built entirely underground in the 1960s and doubled as a nuclear fallout shelter — it still stands today even though it stopped teaching students in 1995. 

Check out the full list of unusual educational institutions below:

SEE ALSO: The best public high school in every state

SEE ALSO: The 25 best public high schools in New York

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A professional school where plus-size models take on fashion industry stereotypes opened in Russia

We've found the 15 hottest US cities for 2016, all of which will be booming next year thanks to new jobs, growing industries, burgeoning art and food scenes, and affordable real estate.

Rising prices in San Francisco will continue to push young hipsters out to Oakland and up north to Portland. Queens will become the hot borough in New York City because of its affordable real estate and rich culinary scene. 

To compile this list we looked at job growth, population growth, affordability, livability, and the health and well-being of each city's residents. We also considered how innovative and "cool" the city is — an important factor in attracting the young, creative types who will make each city hot.

Jennifer Polland contributed to an earlier version of this story.

SEE ALSO: 50 places you should travel to in 2016

Atlanta, Georgia, is undergoing a revitalization that will lure in young professionals.

In the past, young professionals clustered in the smaller satellite cities outside Atlanta, but recent gentrification and construction projects have lured them back to downtown Atlanta. 

Similar to New York's High Line, the Atlanta BeltLine is a redevelopment project that's transforming an old railway track into a recreational path for cyclists and pedestrians.

Piedmont Park has been revitalized as new constructions crop up around it, and dozens of exciting restaurants have opened over the past two years. 

Austin, Texas, has a booming economy and strong tech industry that will bring in tons of young and talented workers.

Austin was named the best-performing city in the US in 2014 by the Milken Institute. In 2015, it took the second-place spot. 

Job growth has been strong here, largely because of the city's burgeoning tech scene. Companies like Dell, Roku, National Instruments, and Flextronics have offices here, and several startups have been coming out of the University of Texas.

All of this has led to an influx of young professionals and recent college grads, which in turn has led to a boom in construction. Austin has had one of the biggest migration rates in the US over the last few years, gaining 31,000 people in 2014 alone. 

Burlington, Vermont, will lead the future of food.

Burlington has always been known for its crunchy-granola vibe, but lately the city has been stepping up its game in leading the rest of the country in sustainability. The local food movement has been taking off here, with new culinary businesses that preach locally grown and made.

The city hosts a local food festival, Eat by Northeast, where food justice nonprofits, farmers, food entrepreneurs, and foodies come together to feast and talk about all stages of local food, from farm to table. Its Intervale Food Hub arranges weekly deliveries of produce sourced from dozens of local farms. These are just a few of the many steps the city is taking to continue to advance the local food movement.

Burlington is also leading the rest of Vermont in sustainable energy. The state plans to have renewable resources provide 90% of the energy for the state by 2050.

With a combined net worth of nearly $1 billion from albums, movies, fashion, record studios, and other business endeavors, Beyoncé and Jay Z are the most powerful couple in entertainment, and together they ranked 50th on Business Insider's recent list of the 50 most powerful people in the world.

Between performances that rake in millions of dollars each to political connections and special foreign travel privileges, read on to see how Mr. and Mrs. Carter became one of the most powerful couples in the world.

SEE ALSO: The 50 most powerful people in the world

Beyoncé Knowles was born in 1981 to Mathew, a successful Xerox salesman, and Tina, a hair stylist. She grew up in a comfortable four-bedroom house in Houston, Texas, which she calls "my foundation."

Source: The Independent, Business Insider

Jay Z grew up quite differently. Born Shawn Carter in 1969, he was raised by a single mother in the projects of Brooklyn. His mother Gloria told CBS she never suspected he would be a superstar.

Source: CBS News

Beyoncé started singing and performing at a young age. When she was seven, she won a talent competition by performing John Lennon's "Imagine."

Source: The Independent, Business Insider

The best speeches — whether they're funny, inspiring, maddening or harrowing — are remembered long after the speaker has left the stage. Some are notable precisely because someone decides to leave the stage (we're looking at you, Kanye). 

These seven speeches — by actors, musicians, and even the international champion of public speaking — run the emotional gamut and were among the most memorable of 2015.

Scroll through to watch the most memorable speeches of the year, curated by Toastmasters International, a nonprofit that teaches public speaking and leadership skills.

SEE ALSO: Here's a breakdown of the speech that won the 2015 World Championship of Public Speaking

SEE ALSO: The best advice from the greatest commencement speeches of all time

While accepting his Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, J.K. Simmons told the audience to "call your mom, call your dad" and tell them how much you love them.

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Tim Cook encouraged graduates to find their "North Star" and never forget their values during his commencement speech at George Washington University.

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David Letterman effusively thanked viewers for supporting him throughout his 33-year run as the host of the 'Late Show.'

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One surefire way to find a great book to read is to see which ones top the best-seller charts.

Amazon recently released its list of the 20 best-selling books of 2015, and chances are, if you haven't already read a few of these yourself, you know someone who has.

It's not too late to read — or reread — the bestsellers of the year. Keep scrolling to see which books made the list.

SEE ALSO: The 17 best books of the year, according to readers

20. "A Spool of Blue Thread" by Anne Tyler

"A Spool of Blue Thread" spans four generations of the Whitshank family — a loving group of people who share laughter, tender moments, milestones, and the challenges of growing up — but just like any other family, they also experience disappointments, heartache, jealousy, and deep-rooted secrets.

From Baltimore in the 1920s to the summer in 1959 when Abby Whitshank fell in love with Red, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Tyler paints an intimate picture of a flawed, but close-knit, family.

Buy the book here »

19. "The Stranger" by Harlan Coben

Adam Price is living the American Dream, with a big house, beautiful wife, great job, and two wonderful kids. Then he runs into The Stranger and learns a secret about his wife, Corinne, that could unravel everything.

No one knows who The Stranger is. He appears out of nowhere and disappears just as quickly, but not before leaving people, like Adam, in the dust. "The Stranger" is another dramatic cliffhanger from prolific suspense writer Harlan Coben.

Buy the book here »

18. "The Crossing" by Michael Connelly

Even though Harry Bosch retired from his detective job with the LAPD, the work isn't over: Bosch's half-brother is an attorney who believes his client has been framed for murder, and he need's Bosch's help now more than ever.

Bosch takes the case as a favor to his brother, but when the real killer discovers that Bosch is hot on his trail, a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse ensues.

Buy the book here »

Nielsen released its annual "Tops of 2015: TV and Social Media" report this week. In it they reveal the top-10 most watched television events of the year. 

Sports dominated with eight of the most watched telecasts, all of them either a college or NFL game or post-game show during January and February 2015. Each drew upwards of 28 million viewers. "The Blacklist," the only television series to have an episode make the list, got a giant bump from airing right after Super Bowl XLIX coverage. 

Scroll through for the biggest TV events of the year:

SEE ALSO: The 20 best-selling books of the year

SEE ALSO: The 7 most memorable speeches of 2015

10. College Football Playoff semifinal: Alabama vs. Ohio State

Date aired: January 1

Average number of viewers: 28,468,000

9. AFC Divisional Round Playoff post-game: Colts vs. Broncos

Date aired: January 11

Average number of viewers: 28,581,000

8. The Blacklist

Date aired: February 1

Average number of viewers: 30,489,000

Earning an MBA can provide business-school graduates with an increased salary, a vast network of industry contacts, and new opportunities, but the extent of these career benefits can vary significantly depending on the school.

For our sixth annual ranking of the best business schools, we looked at 60 perennially top-rated institutions that offer MBA programs and evaluated them based on the most recent data available on five metrics: reputation (determined through our annual reader survey); average starting salary after graduation; job-placement rate (the percentage of graduates employed within three months of graduation); average GMAT score; and tuition and fees.

We considered reputation and starting salary as the most telling factors of a school's worth, and these categories were weighted more heavily than the other three. Read a breakdown of the methodology here.

The revamped methodology reshuffled this year's ranks with surprising results, with the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School topping the list for the first time. The highest-ranked international school on the list is the London Business School, earning the No. 12 spot.

Read on to see the full list of the 50 best business schools in the world.

Editing by Alex Morrell with additional research by Andy Kiersz.

SEE ALSO: The 50 best colleges in America

NOW READ: The 50 best companies to work for in America

50. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore — Nanyang Business School

Location: Singapore

Average starting salary: $80,300

Average GMAT score: 665

Nanyang's double MBA and master's degree programs allow students to earn a simultaneous degree from partner business schools, such as a second MBA from Waseda University in Tokyo or a master's in management from France's ESSEC Business School.

All students complete a weeklong Business Study Mission, locally or overseas, in which they attend seminars with industry leaders, meet with local business associations, and visit businesses. The study mission gives students an opportunity to build professional networks and apply what they learn in the classroom to real-world environments.

49. University of Toronto — Rotman School of Management

Location: Toronto, Canada

Average starting salary: $88,400

Average GMAT score: 663

The Rotman School of Management is the only Canadian MBA program on our list, offering students the best business reputation in the country. It draws recruiters from Toronto and beyond, including companies like the Royal Bank of Canada, Bain & Co., IBM, Microsoft, and Accenture, among others.

The school started its own venture incubator in 2012 called the Creative Destruction Lab, and Rotman MBA students are tasked with providing analysis and insight for the lab's startups. Its first cohort has generated more than $165 million in equity value.

48. University of Wisconsin — Wisconsin School of Business

Location: Madison, Wisconsin

Average starting salary: $100,700

Average GMAT score: 668

Recent graduates from the Wisconsin School of Business typically landed salaries greater than $100,000, and 90% secured employment within three months of graduation. The small program — WSB has fewer than 200 full-time MBA students — gives students individualized attention from the school's experts: professors, staff, guest speakers, and others.

Business school graduates who gain an MBA can secure increased salaries and greatly improve their contacts and career prospects.

However, choosing where to study for an MBA is an increasingly difficult decision. Business Insider recently released its sixth-annual ranking of the best business schools in the world.

The list was determined by analysing data on five metrics: reputation (determined through our annual reader survey), average starting salary after graduation, job placement rate (the percentage of graduates who were employed within three months of graduation), average GMAT score, and tuition and fees.

You can read a full explanation of the methodology used to determine our rankings here.

Read on to see the full list of the 10 best business schools in Europe.

Editing by Alex Morrell with additional research by Andy Kiersz.

10. Ramon Llull University — ESADE Business School

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Average starting salary: £47,850 ($72,400)

Average GMAT score: 660

ESADE offers a bilingual — English and Spanish — graduate degree in business that provides students the flexibility to heighten their career prospects in a time frame that suits them. The customised program can be completed in 12, 15, or 18 months to allow time for other personal and professional commitments. The 12-month program provides an accelerated MBA degree, while the 18-month program leaves students time for internships, academic exchanges, and other opportunities while completing academic requirements.

9. University of Warwick — Warwick Business School

Location: Coventry, England

Average starting salary: £60,000 ($90,800)

Average GMAT score: 656

The University of Warwick's business school offers a 12-month MBA program for students with a global-business mind-set that includes an intensive schedule of core and elective modules, a consultancy project, and optional studies abroad. Within 90 days of graduating, 97% of students secured a job in 2015 — one of the highest placement rates on our list. Warwick's top-recruiting companies include Amazon, American Express, Citibank, and Goldman Sachs.

8. International Institute for Management Development — IMD

Location: Lausanne, Switzerland

Average starting salary:£67,400 ($102,000)

Average GMAT score: 670

IMD carefully selects just 90 students for each class of its one-year MBA program, and the program proves career altering for almost all: 94% of the 2014 graduating class changed job function, industry, or geographic location. More than two-thirds of graduates go on to accept jobs in industry positions like manufacturing, technology/media, and consumer products, and the top-hiring companies include Accenture, Amazon, and Cisco Systems.

Love getting lost in a good story? Goodreads rounded up the best fiction books of 2015.

To compile the list, Goodreads' editors nominated titles frequently reviewed on the site, which were then voted on by readers.

This year's selections cover everything from immigration to disease to true tests of friendship.

Scroll to see the 20 fiction titles you need to add to your reading list before 2015 is over.

SEE ALSO: The 20 best-selling books of the year

“Go Set a Watchman” by Harper Lee

Twenty years after the conclusion of “To Kill A Mockingbird,” an older Scout Finch returns home to Maycomb, Alabama, where she uncovers shocking truths about her family.

As old memories are dredged up and the South moves through a tense civil-rights movement, Scout begins to question everything she stands for.

Find the book here »

“After You” by Jojo Moyes

The sequel to Moyes’ best-selling “Me Before You,” this novel picks up with protagonist Louisa Clark in the wake of losing Will Traynor, the quadriplegic man she spent six transformative months caring for and falling in love with.

In the midst of her grief, an accident lands Lou back home with her family, and things get even more complicated when an abandoned teenager named Lily shows up on her doorstep.

Find the book here »

“The Royal We” by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

When Bex Porter leaves the US to attend Oxford University, she never expects to live down the hall from Prince Nicholas, the heir to the British throne. Even less expected, Bex falls in love with Nicholas and finds herself entangled in the complicated world of high society.

From attending glamorous events to dealing with the difficult secrets of the famously private royal family, Bex must put everything that defines her on the line for the man she loves.

Find the book here »

Business Insider recently released its sixth annual list of the best business schools in the world, and this year graduates' starting salaries were a crucial component of our ranking. Among the top-50 schools, there were 22 programs where students went on to earn an average base salary — before any bonuses or benefits — of $110,000 or more after graduation.

Although Stanford placed fourth on the overall list, its graduates earn the highest starting salaries of all the schools we ranked, averaging more than $133,000. Read on to see top-rated business schools where students typically earn salaries of more than $110,000 straight out of the gate, listed here in ascending order.

Editing by Alex Morrell with additional research by Andy Kiersz.

SEE ALSO: The 50 best business schools in the world

DON'T MISS: The 50 best colleges where students earn high starting salaries

University of Washington — Foster School of Business

Location: Seattle, Washington

Average starting salary: $110,000

University of Washington MBA students are mentored by some of Seattle's leading business talent, who foster an out-of-classroom learning experience for the students. Companies that frequently hire students out of the Foster School of Business include Seattle natives Amazon and Starbucks, as well as Johnson & Johnson, McKinsey & Co., and Northwestern Mutual, among others.

Rice University — Jones Graduate School of Business

Location: Houston, Texas

Average starting salary: $111,400

At the Jones Graduate School of Business, first-year students take core curriculum courses in finance, marketing, and accounting and participate in an Action Learning Project — a 13-week consultative assignment for an established company. Rice MBA students also have the option to earn up to two degree concentrations from 10 areas, including energy, entrepreneurship, healthcare, and real estate. Ninety-one percent of 2015 grads accepted jobs within 90 days.

New York University — Stern School of Business

Location: New York, New York

Average starting salary: $112,100

Stern's MBA program heavily focuses on individuality, and students can choose up to three specializations, with options including everything from banking to real estate to luxury marketing. Post-graduation, students end up at a range of companies, including Boston Consulting Group, NBCUniversal, Morgan Stanley, and Burberry.

The school takes its name from billionaire property mogul Leonard Stern, who earned his MBA from NYU in 1959 and donated $30 million to construct a new building for the business school in 1988.

More than one-quarter of the top-50 schools on our sixth annual ranking of the best business schools are located outside of the United States. So we compiled a second ranking featuring only international institutions. 

London Business School ranked No. 12 on our overall list of the best in the world, but it was the top-ranked international school, followed by France's INSEAD, which ranked 18th on our global list.

To determine our original ranking we looked at 60 perennially top-rated institutions that offer MBA programs and evaluated them based on the most recent data available on five metrics: reputation, average starting salary after graduation, job-placement rate, average GMAT score, and tuition and fees. Read a breakdown of the methodology here.

Here are the 14 best business schools based outside the US.

Editing by Alex Morrell with additional research by Andy Kiersz.

SEE ALSO: The 50 best business schools in the world

NOW READ: The 50 best colleges in America

14. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore — Nanyang Business School

Location: Singapore

Average starting salary: $80,300

Average GMAT score: 665

Nanyang's double MBA and master's degree programs allow students to earn a simultaneous degree from partner business schools, such as a second MBA from Waseda University in Tokyo or a master's in management from France's ESSEC Business School.

All students complete a weeklong Business Study Mission, locally or overseas, in which they attend seminars with industry leaders, meet with local business associations, and visit businesses. The study mission gives students an opportunity to build professional networks and apply what they learn in the classroom to real-world environments.

13. University of Toronto — Rotman School of Management

Location: Toronto, Canada

Average starting salary: $88,400

Average GMAT score: 663

The Rotman School of Management is the only Canadian MBA program on our list, offering students the best business reputation in the country. It draws recruiters from Toronto and beyond, including companies like the Royal Bank of Canada, Bain & Co., IBM, Microsoft, and Accenture, among others.

The school started its own venture incubator in 2012 called the Creative Destruction Lab, and Rotman MBA students are tasked with providing analysis and insight for the lab's startups. Its first cohort has generated more than $165 million in equity value.

12. China Europe International Business School — CEIBS

Location: Shanghai, China

Average starting salary: $76,200

Average GMAT score: 690

Shanghai is China's top economic and financial powerhouse, and CEIBS puts students in the heart of it all. Two-thirds of graduates stay in Shanghai, and 21% go into financial services. CEIBS, established in 1994, has been dubbed mainland China's leading business school for its global focus and wide variety of tailored electives. The school also partners with Cornell, Johns Hopkins, and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy for students who want to pursue degrees in hospitality management, health administration, and law, respectively.

Business Insider recently released its sixth annual ranking of the best business schools in the world, and this year we included students' average GMAT scores as a scoring component.  

To determine our overall ranking we looked at 60 perennially top-rated institutions that offer MBA programs and evaluated them based on the most recent data available on five metrics: reputation, average starting salary after graduation, job-placement rate, average GMAT score, and tuition and fees (you can read a breakdown of the methodology here).

Among the top-50 schools, there were 10 programs where students entered with average GMAT scores of at least 715 out of a possible 800. Although Stanford placed fourth on the overall list, its students performed the best on the GMAT with an average mark of 733. 

Read on to see if you could've gotten into these top business schools with the highest GMAT scores, listed here in ascending order. 

Editing by Alex Morrell with additional research by Andy Kiersz.

SEE ALSO: The 50 best business schools in the world

NOW READ: 22 MBA programs where graduates earn more than $110,000 right out of school

University of California at Berkeley — Haas School of Business

Location: Berkeley, California

Average GMAT score: 715

The second-oldest business school in the US, the Haas School of Business was named for Walter Haas, who was an undergrad at Berkeley and grew Levi Strauss & Co. into the world's largest apparel manufacturer before his death in 1979. Haas boasts impressive diversity within its MBA classes. Typically, more than 30% of each class is composed of women, last year 37% of the class were international students, and 36% identified as minorities.

Columbia University — Columbia Business School

Location: New York, New York

Average GMAT score: 715

Students begin crafting their network and community within the business world the minute they arrive at Columbia, thanks in part to the school's cluster system, which places first-year students in "clusters" of 65 to 70 people who take all their core classes together. Columbia also counts some of the greatest minds in finance among its alumni, including Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett and former Bank of America executive Sallie Krawcheck.

Dartmouth College — Tuck School of Business

Location: Hanover, New Hampshire

Average GMAT score: 716

After their first year in the program, a full 100% of Tuck's class of 2016 gained hands-on experience through summer internships.

Within three months of graduation, 95% of the class of 2015 had accepted job offers, many of them at big-name companies, including Bain & Co., Goldman Sachs, Samsung, Deloitte, and Barclays Capital.

Often the only way to justify spending tens of thousands of dollars on business school is the promise of a high starting salary post graduation.

We took a look at our list of the 50 best business schools in the world and re-evaluated them on a ratio of starting salary to tuition to determine which schools give you the best bang for your buck. The higher the starting salary and lower the tuition and fees, the better the school fared on this ranking.

Because our ranking is globally focused, we only considered out-of-state tuition, ignoring the discount those who live close to the school may receive. Residency discounts would naturally make some schools an even better bargain for students eligible to take advantage of them. 

Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Management came in No. 1 on our list, with grads going on to earn average starting salaries of $102,800, more than twice the $47,900 cost of tuition. Coming in at No. 2 is Nanyang Business School, where the cost of tuition ($39,100) is only half of what grads, on average, will make at their first jobs ($80,300).

Fourteen of the 24 schools on this list are located outside the US. One possible explanation for this strong international presence is that many of these schools offer one-year MBA programs in lieu of the standard two-year US program, minimizing tuition costs but still resulting in significant starting salaries.

Out of the 50 best business schools in the world, here are the ones that offer the most for your money. 

Editing by Alex Morrell with additional research by Andy Kiersz.

SEE ALSO: The 50 best business schools in the world

SEE ALSO: The 50 best colleges in America

24. Ramon Llull University — ESADE Business School

Location: Barcelona, Spain

Average starting salary: $72,400

Program tuition and fees: $65,300

ESADE offers a bilingual — English and Spanish — graduate degree in business that provides students the flexibility to heighten their career prospects in a time frame that suits them. The customized program can be completed in 12, 15, or 18 months to allow time for other personal and professional commitments. The 12-month program provides an accelerated MBA degree, while the 18-month program leaves students time for internships, academic exchanges, and other opportunities while completing academic requirements.

23. University of Notre Dame — Mendoza College of Business

Location: Notre Dame, Indiana

Average starting salary: $108,200

Program tuition and fees: $96,600

Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business has one of the largest alumni networks in the world, putting students in touch with a wide variety of networking opportunities and business connections. The MBA program's "interim intensive" pairs students with executives at well-known corporations to shadow and help solve real business problems. Mendoza also has a one-year accelerated MBA program for exceptional students who have an undergraduate degree in business or relevant work experience.

22. Michigan State University — Eli Broad College of Business

Location: East Lansing, Michigan

Average starting salary: $101,400 

Program tuition and fees: $89,800

At Michigan State, MBA candidates aren't confined to their immediate surroundings. The globally focused curriculum draws on MSU's worldwide programs and recruitment efforts to explore how business practices vary worldwide.

Broad's class of 2015 accepted full-time positions at a multitude of influential companies, with top employers including Apple, Ernst & Young, Intel, Dell, and General Motors.

Business Insider recently released its sixth annual list of the best business schools in the world, ranking the top schools from California to Hong Kong. 

American schools dominated the ranking, with 10 schools from the Northeast alone, so we decided to narrow in on the region for a separate ranking. 

To determine our overall ranking, we looked at 60 perennially top-rated institutions that offer MBA programs and evaluated them based on the most recent data available on five metrics: reputation (determined through our annual reader survey); average starting salary after graduation; job-placement rate (the percentage of graduates employed within three months of graduation); average GMAT score; and tuition and fees. You can read a breakdown of the methodology here.

Read on to see the best business schools in the American Northeast.

Editing by Alex Morrell with additional research by Andy Kiersz.

SEE ALSO: The 50 best business schools in the world

NOW READ: The 50 best companies to work for in America

10. Boston University — Questrom School of Business

Location: Boston, Massachusetts

Average starting salary: $100,000

Average GMAT score: 682

In March, BU's School of Management was renamed the Questrom School of Business following a $50 million donation from Allen Questrom, the retired CEO of JC Penney, and his wife Kelli — the largest gift in the university's history. Despite the new name, the school's MBA program is one of the oldest in the country, established in 1925. Today, the school focuses on preparing students for careers in digital technology, healthcare, and social enterprise and sustainability, and it has a 93% job-placement rate within three months of graduation.

9. Carnegie Mellon University — Tepper School of Business

Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Average starting salary: $115,300

Average GMAT score: 687

Tepper graduates are encouraged to pursue careers within one of the four major corporate functions: marketing, finance, consulting, and operations. The career center helps students connect with companies, meet with potential employers, and build their networks. Students are directly recruited by some of the biggest names in business, including Goldman Sachs, IBM, Google, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo.

8. New York University — Stern School of Business

Location: New York, New York

Average starting salary: $112,100

Average GMAT score: 720

Stern's MBA program heavily focuses on individuality, and students can choose up to three specializations, with options including everything from banking to real estate to luxury marketing. Post-graduation, students end up at a range of companies, including Boston Consulting Group, NBCUniversal, Morgan Stanley, and Burberry.

The school takes its name from billionaire property mogul Leonard Stern, who earned his MBA from NYU in 1959 and donated $30 million to construct a new building for the business school in 1988.

We recently released our sixth annual ranking of the best business schools in the world. For the first time since we began tracking b-schools, University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School came in at No. 1.

To compile the list, we looked at 60 perennially top-rated institutions that offer MBA programs and evaluated them based on the most recent data available on five metrics: reputation (determined through our annual reader survey); average starting salary after graduation; job-placement rate (the percentage of graduates employed within three months of graduation); average GMAT score; and tuition and fees.

We considered reputation and starting salary as the most telling factors of a school's worth, and these categories were weighted more heavily than the other three. Read a breakdown of the methodology here.

Business Insider decided to create an infographic so readers could better visualize where the best 25 business schools hail from. Find them below, broken down by geographic location:

SEE ALSO: The top 10 business schools with the highest GMAT scores

NOW READ: The top 24 best business schools for your money

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Dozens of cool, innovative businesses pop up across the US every day, bringing new technologies, entertainment options, and services to their local communities.

Throughout the year, we've highlighted several of these small, independent businesses that have opened over the past five years or so in New York City, San Francisco, Houston, Portland, Boston, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and now we've scoured the rest of the country for inventive new ventures.

From a pizza oven on wheels to a boutique where everything's free — with a catch, of course — there are plenty of smart places to check out. Read on to see our top 50.

Editing by Alex Morrell. Additional reporting by Lauren Browning.

SEE ALSO: The 29 coolest new businesses in New York City

SEE ALSO: The 19 coolest new businesses in San Francisco

5 Rabbit Cervecería

6398 W. 74th St., Bedford Park, Illinois

What it is: A Latin-influenced craft brewery that bases its beers on Aztec culture.

Why it's cool: Located just outside Chicago, the first Latin microbrewery, or cervecería, in the US infuses its brews with ancho chili, piloncillo cane sugar, and other Latin flavors. Inspired by an Aztec myth, 5 Rabbit names all of its beers to coincide with the Aztec calendar.

Angela & Roi

Online, based in Boston, Massachusetts

What it is: A handbag company that has a unique charity-donation policy.

Why it's cool: Angela & Roi handbags come in all sorts of colors, but when choosing, most customers don't just think about the color they like; they also think about the "color" they're donating to. A portion of each bag sale goes to the charity whose color coordinates with the bag — red is for HIV/AIDS, pink is for breast cancer, and so forth. Angela & Roi bags are also eco-conscious, made without animal products or sweatshop labor.

Arrowroot

Online, based in Denver, Colorado

What it is: A brand that believes in ethically produced clothing and dressing up every day.

Why it's cool: This online retailer based in Denver claims to make it easier to get dressed in the morning, whether you’re running errands, heading to work, or grabbing coffee with a friend. This fair-trade fashion label was created by E.A. Lepine, a designer intent on trading lazy-day yoga pants for casual, comfortable, and trendy dresses.

All items sold at Arrowroot are sewn by a group of seven women in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The women earn fair wages — about $10 to $12 an hour, enough to support a family — and healthcare benefits.

Hundreds of movies come out every year, but only a fraction become hits. Business Insider decided to rank the most successful movies of 2015 based on global box-office performance, critic reviews, and fan ratings.

We started with a group of the 150 highest-grossing films of the past year through the weekend ending Dec. 20 — culled from Box Office Mojo — and then subtracted their production budget to arrive at a box-office profit figure. We also compiled critic ratings from review aggregator Metacritic (scale: 0 to 100) and fan ratings from IMDb (scale: 0 to 10). We combined these three metrics by taking their geometric mean and ranking the movies based on that composite score. We included some films on our list that technically opened in 2014, as their wide-release box office run took place primarily in 2015.

Our top 50 grossed a combined $19 billion worldwide at the box office. Many were reboots or extensions of a franchise, including Vin Diesel's action blockbuster "Furious 7," which claimed the top spot thanks to strong reviews from fans and critics as well as an expectations-shattering $1.3 billion box-office profit worldwide.

With only one weekend under its belt, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" vaulted to No. 9 after a record-breaking $529 million opening weekend; it will likely ascend higher in the final days of 2015.

Read on to see the 50 most successful films of 2015:

SEE ALSO: THE A-LIST: The 30 coolest, most famous people in Hollywood right now

DON'T MISS: The 10 biggest box-office bombs of 2015

50. "Woman in Gold"

Global box office sales: $61.6M

Production budget: $11M

Box office profit: $50.6M

Critic rating: 51

Fan rating:7.3

In "Woman in Gold," Helen Mirren plays a World War II survivor trying to reclaim her family's possessions that were stolen by the Nazis — including a valuable painting — with Ryan Reynolds serving as her lawyer. Critics were lukewarm about the treatment of this true-to-life tale, but audiences were more forgiving.

49. "Black Mass"

Global box office sales: $94.6M

Production budget: $53M

Box office profit: $41.6M

Critic rating:68

Fan rating:7.2

Detailing the rise of notorious Boston mobster Whitey Bulger, "Black Mass" earned approval as one of the best gangster movies in years. And after a string of curious, underwhelming film decisions, Johnny Depp is once again in prime form in the lead role as the kingpin.

48. "Still Alice"

Global box office sales: $43.9M

Production budget: $5M

Box office profit: $38.9M

Critic rating: 72

Fan rating:7.5

Still among the best actors in the business, Julianne Moore proves it once again in "Still Alice," in which she plays a Columbia University linguistics professor stricken by early-onset Alzheimer's. Released in time for the 2015 award season, Moore won an Academy Award — she had been nominated three times previously — and a Golden Globe for best actress, likely helping the film secure a nice profit at the box office during its wide release this year.

Our sixth annual ranking of the 50 best business schools in the world evaluated MBA programs based on reputation, average starting salary after graduation, job-placement rate within three months of graduation, average GMAT score, and tuition and fees. (Read our full methodology here.)

Because business school is such a hefty investment, the ability to get a job soon after graduating is an important factor in choosing where to go.

To come up with our list of the 20 top business schools for getting a job right away, we broke out the schools by job-placement rate. Some schools that ranked highly on our main list didn't make this ranking because of lower job-placement figures, such as Harvard (91%) and Stanford (86%).

It's worth noting though that many students at these schools decide to start their own businesses — an employment result that schools don't factor into their overall job-placement statistic. 

Keep scrolling to see the best business schools for finding a job after graduating, listed here in ascending order by job-placement percentage. 

Editing by Alex Morrell with additional research by Andy Kiersz.

SEE ALSO: The 50 best business schools in the world

NOW READ: 22 MBA programs where graduates earn more than $110,000 right out of school

Columbia University — Columbia Business School

Location: New York, New York

Job-placement rate: 93%

Students begin crafting their network and community within the business world the minute they arrive at Columbia, thanks in part to the school's cluster system, which places first-year students in "clusters" of 65 to 70 people who take all their core classes together. Columbia also counts some of the greatest minds in finance among its alumni, including Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett and former Bank of America executive Sallie Krawcheck.

University of London — London Business School (LBS)

Location: London, England

Job-placement rate: 93%

University of London's business school is once again the best outside the US. With 75% of the top-500 global companies based in London, the school is a recruiting and networking gold mine for a host of multinational corporations, including Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Co.

In addition to earning an MBA, students are required to graduate with a second-language proficiency in one of 15 languages offered by the Modern Language Centre at King's College London.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Sloan School of Management

Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Job-placement rate: 93%

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is not only the best college in America, but it's also home to one of the best business schools. The Sloan School of Management, which celebrated its 100-year anniversary last year, offers three MBA tracks: enterprise management, entrepreneurship and innovation, and finance.

Sloan reported that 2014 graduates accepted job offers at companies like Adobe, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook, and 7.4% of grads went on to start their own businesses.