 <p>This can be done simply with the following to get the actual text value...</p> <pre><code>var value = $("[name='MyName'] option:selected").text(); </code></pre> <p>or this to get the option 'value' attribute...</p> <pre><code>var value = $("[name='MyName']").val(); </code></pre> <p>With the following html, the first will give you 'MyText', the second will give you 'MyValue'</p> <pre><code>&lt;select name="MyName"&gt; &lt;option value="MyValue" selected="selected"&gt;MyText&lt;/option&gt; &lt;/select&gt; </code></pre> <p><a href="http://jsfiddle.net/mQSYh/">Here is a working example</a></p>