C# – Dynamically changing header text of a gridview column

jQuery's documentation states:

[jQuery.val] checks, or selects, all the radio buttons, checkboxes, and select options that match the set of values.

This behavior is in jQuery versions 1.2 and above.

You most likely want this:

$("._statusDDL").val('2');

You can use GridViewColumn.HeaderText

for (int i = 0; i < grdToDisplay.Columns.Count; i++)
{
    string header = grdToDisplay.Columns[i].HeaderText;
}

Edit:

but this would give me no results as the columns count is 0

Then you have AutoGenerateColumns=true and only declaratively added columns are counted. So use this code after you have databound the GridView:

for (int i = 0; i < grdToDisplay.HeaderRow.Cells.Count; i++)
{
    string header = grdToDisplay.HeaderRow.Cells[i].Text;
}