The pathways of individuals into teaching exhibit several moments of choice that impact crucially on the final composition of the teaching workforce. Though the transition from training into teaching has frequently been studied, the self-selection into the institutions of teacher education has received little attention until now. Sorting into teacher education plays a major role in the determination of the potential quality of the teaching workforce. The question is, therefore, who is interested in teacher training. The analyses contained in this study are based on a representative sample of 1567 high school students in Switzerland shortly before graduation. The findings indicate that there is systematic self-selection into teacher training institutions which is principally based on gender, socio-economic background and high school profile. This sorting is reinforced by the institutional and structural characteristics of the types of higher education institutions and the courses of study they offer. Accordingly, the findings of this paper tend to indicate that, to a large extent, the choices made by future teachers depend also on where and how teachers are trained. (Contains 4 tables and 8 notes.)