The aim of this paper is to explain ethnic differences in the transition from school to vocational education and training (VET) in German-speaking Switzerland. I examine the impact of application behavior and resource endowment on access to VET and the number of applications submitted. Even after controlling for differences in resource endowment, I find clear ethnic penalties in success rates and the number of applications submitted between natives and minority students. Once I introduce different application behavior in my models, ethnic differences in success rates either diminish sharply or even vanish. However, substantial ethnic penalties remain in the number of applications submitted. There are therefore indications of discrimination in the application process on the Swiss–German VET market. The data sets for the replication of this study can be downloaded from the following address: https://forsbase.unil.ch/datasets/dataset-public-detail/16347/1863/ Data set version 3.0.0 DAB-Panelstudie (DAB): W1 - W7 [Dataset]. Universität Bern, Institut für Erziehungswissenschaft, Abteilung Bildungssoziologie. Distributed by FORS, Lausanne. https://doi.org/10.23662/FORS-DS-946-4