Select elements typically have two values that you want to access. First there's the value to be sent to the server, which is easy:

$( "#myselect" ).val();
// => 1

The second is the text value of the select. For example, using the following select box:

<select id="myselect">
	<option value="1">Mr</option>
	<option value="2">Mrs</option>
	<option value="3">Ms</option>
	<option value="4">Dr</option>
	<option value="5">Prof</option>
</select>

If you wanted to get the string "Mr" if the first option was selected (instead of just "1") you would do that in the following way:

$( "#myselect option:selected" ).text();
// => "Mr"