title: C# MVC - Retrieve Dropdown List Option Value on Form Post
body: <p>I have successfully implemented a number of Dropdowns in my view that are displaying data correctly from my DB tables. However when I submit the form and request filtered data I am running into issues. </p>
  
  <p>On my post method I am using Form Collection to gather the data selected on the submit. However when I access the data it is returning the Select option text and not its actual Value which is what I am after. For example: </p>
  
  <pre><code> &lt;select class="form-control" id="SelectedValue" name="SelectedValue"&gt;
        &lt;option value="@item.itemValue"&gt;@item.itemName&lt;/option&gt; 
   &lt;/select&gt;
  
   string example = collection["SelectedValue"];
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>string example will be assigned the item.itemName when I debug my code. How can I return item.itemValue? </p>
  
  <p>Thanks for your help in advance. </p>