title: creating a drop down list in MVC5
body: <p>I am trying to create a drop down list but it gives me an error saying 'Cannot implicitly convert type 'string' to 'System.Web.Mvc.SelectList'. My code is below:</p>
  
  <p>Application Database Model:</p>
  
  <pre><code>public string dropdown{ get; set; }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Application View Model:</p>
  
  <pre><code>public SelectList dropdown{ get; set; }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>ApplicationService.cs:</p>
  
  <pre><code> public static SelectList GetDropdownList(string currSelection)
      {
          List&lt;SelectListItem&gt; list = new List&lt;SelectListItem&gt;();
          list.Add(new SelectListItem { Value = "1", Text = "firstvalue" });
          list.Add(new SelectListItem { Value = "2", Text = "secondvalure" });
          list.Add(new SelectListItem { Value = "3", Text = "All of the Above" });
  
  
          return new SelectList(list, "Value", "Text", currSelection);
      }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>in my controller i am calling:</p>
  
  <pre><code> applicationviewmodel.dropdown= ApplicationService.GetDropdownList(null);
  
   and then trying to save it in database as:
  
   ApplicationDatabaseModel.dropdown= applicationviewmodel.dropdown;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This is where i get this error.</p>
  
  <p>In my view i have:</p>
  
  <pre><code> @Html.DropDownListFor(x =&gt; x.dropdown, applicationviewmodel.dropdown)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I am not sure how to make this work.</p>