You can define the default value from the ‘data’ attribute. This is part of the Abstract “field” type (http://symfony.com/doc/2.0/reference/forms/types/field.html)
$form = $this->createFormBuilder()
->add('status', 'choice', array(
'choices' => array(
0 => 'Published',
1 => 'Draft'
),
'data' => 1
))
->getForm();
In this example, ‘Draft’ would be set as the default selected value.