title: jQuery change value of select list
body: <p>I have the following code</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;select id="practice_id" name="practice" column="practice" style="width: 200px"&gt;
   &lt;option value=""&gt;Default&lt;/option&gt;
   &lt;option value="1"&gt;Test 1&lt;/option&gt;
   &lt;option value="2"&gt;Test 2&lt;/option&gt;
   &lt;option value="3"&gt;Test 3&lt;/option&gt;
   ...............
  &lt;/select&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What I need to do, is to change the value of the selected item to one based on a query string number (I can get this value ok)</p>
  
  <p>I am trying to change the value using jQuery, but nothing I've tried seems to work.</p>
  
  <pre><code>$('#practice_id').val('QUERY_STRING_NUMBER');
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This doesn't seem to work as the value doesn't change.</p>
  
  <p>I am I getting something wrong here?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks</p>