Setting the selected attribute on a select list using jQuery

If you don’t mind modifying your HTML a little to include the value attribute of the options, you can significantly reduce the code necessary to do this:

<option>B</option>

to

<option value="B">B</option>

This will be helpful when you want to do something like:

<option value="IL">Illinois</option>

With that, the follow jQuery will make the change:

$("select option[value="B"]").attr("selected","selected");

If you decide not to include the use of the value attribute, you will be required to cycle through each option, and manually check its value:

$("select option").each(function(){
  if ($(this).text() == "B")
    $(this).attr("selected","selected");
});