This article presents an overall exploratory comparison of two specific pre-service teacher preparation programmes at two research-intensive institutions of higher education in the USA and Romania. The main conclusions suggest that US and Romanian teacher candidates differ very little in their ratings of their respective programmes in terms of learning in the programme, preparation for general teaching and twenty-first century skills. The largest differences were recorded for the university supervisor and cooperating teacher constructs, which the US teacher candidates rated considerably higher than their Romanian peers, namely in the quality and extent of applied field and clinical experiences, which merit further exploration.