MVC – Set selected value of SelectList

If you have your SelectList object, just iterate through the items in it and set the “Selected” property of the item you wish.

foreach (var item in selectList.Items)
{
  if (item.Value == selectedValue)
  {
    item.Selected = true;
    break;
  }
}

Or with Linq:

var selected = list.Where(x => x.Value == "selectedValue").First();
selected.Selected = true;