Against the background of differing admission selectivity, structure, and status of teacher education in Denmark and Finland, we analyze the extent to which beginning teacher education students differ with respect to previous educational pathways, socio-demographic characteristics, academic self-concepts, and occupational motivations. In both Denmark and Finland, representative groups of first-year teacher education students and final-year upper-secondary students were surveyed. The collected data enabled us to characterize teacher education students in contrast to a baseline reference group of school students and to compare these differences across countries (difference-in-differences estimation). The results of our study indicate that Danish student teachers lag behind their Finnish peers in the valuation of their math skills. In addition, the average motivational profiles of Danish and Finnish teacher education students differ markedly. Implications of our findings are discussed.