MVC - Clear default selected value of SelectList

Question

I have a SelectList that gets populated with data from the database. The data comes from a Dictionary<int, string> and populates the SelectList like below.

//...

Courses = new SelectList(GetCourses(),"Key","Value");

//...

On the View, it shows the first record from the database as the default selected value on the dropdown. I'd like to clear this value and leave the dropdown empty so the user can manually select a value. If possible without using javascript.

//I have this on the view
<%= Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.CourseID, Model.Courses) %>

Please help!

Answer 1

Use the overload which takes an optionLabel:

<%= Html.DropDownListFor(model => model.CourseID, Model.Courses, string.Empty) %>