HTML:

<select id="ftselect">
<option value="MostRecent">MostRecent</option>
<option value="MostLiked">MostLiked</option> 
 <option value="Relavance">Relavance</option>
<option value="MostViewed">MostViewed</option> </select>

Jクエリ:

$("select").change(function () {

      $("select option:selected").each(function () {
            str = $(this).text();
          });        

    })
    .change();