enthused_confused

After some tweaking I was able to get the code working.
Had to add some quotation marks and semicolons.
Had to add some echo as well.
Had to include $statelist array.
working code looks like this:
<select id="req-state" name="req-state" class="form-control" placeholder="please select your state"> <?php $stateList = array("Alabama", "Alaska", "Arkansas", "Arizona", "California", "Colorado", "Connecticut", "District of Columbia", "Delaware", "Florida", "Georgia", "Hawaii", "Idaho", "Illinois", "Indiana","Iowa", "Kansas", "Kentucky", "Louisiana", "Maine", "Maryland","Massachusetts", "Michigan", "Minnesota", "Missouri", "Mississippi", "Montana", "Nebraska", "Nevada","New Hampshire", "New Jersey", "New Mexico", "New York","North Carolina","North Dakota", "Ohio", "Oklahoma", "Oregon", "Pennsylvania", "Rhode Island", "South Carolina", "South Dakota", "Tennessee", "Texas", "Utah", "Vermont", "Virginia", "Virgin Islands", "Washington", "West Virginia","Wisconsin", "Wyoming"); $opts = "<option value=''>Please select a state</option>"; echo $opts; foreach ($stateList as $state) { $sel = $state==$_SESSION['state'] ? 'selected' : '';     $opts .= "<option $sel>$state</option>"; } echo $opts; ?> </select> Thanks Barand.
Thanks Requinix for having a look as well.