Calling jQuery with an element as argument will just wrap the element in a jQuery object (i.e. How do I get the text value of a selected option? be part of the results, but option groups are not included in the list. Now, check each selection of options in the select box using the each() function of jQuery. Get You have to first select your required option from the dropdown. Share. Since you actually want the inner text of the selected . Select2 multi-value select boxes can set restrictions regarding the maximum number of options that can be selected. Not the answer you're looking for? How to get final select values from multi-select drop down list Jquery. var selectedVal = $ ("#myselect option:selected").val (); jquery you can also do: $("#id option").each(function(name, val) { var opt=val.text; }); Upvoting this answer because the original question was how to do it with jQuery - so then the answer should use jQuery, not vanilla JS. Don't give irrelevent comment.. I need to add values to the selected list (i.e. It maintains a reference to an option element. how to get the multiple values of a select box? How do I replace text from the 3rd element of a list of 10 items. @emfi If you want the parameter to be sent there must be a value; you can add "selected" to the tag (ie ) if you can tolerate having a default option in the list. Why not, @bobince? The HTML that creates the selection box and the . (see the "size" drop down in the demo below) DEMO HERE: https://codepen.io/jinch/pen/poRpgzV?editors=0010.