AbstractVarious diastereomericN‐protected dipeptide methyl esters were synthesized fromN‐protected racemic amino acids and racemic amino acid methyl esters. Derivatives of alanine, valine, leucine, and phenylalanine were condensed in various solvents including optically active solvents such asO‐acetyl lactic acid ethyl ester,N‐acetyl lactic acid ethyl ester, orN‐acetyl L‐alanine methyl ester. TheN‐protected amino acids were activated by means of 2‐ethoxy‐1‐ethoxycarbonyl‐1,2‐dihydroquinoline (EEDQ), dicyclohexylcarbodiimide and 4‐chlorothiophenol, 1,1‐carbonyldiimidazole, 1‐diethoxyphosphino‐1,3,4‐triazole, chloroacetonitrile, and isobutyl chloroformate. The reaction mixtures containing four stereoisomers were analyzed by means of13C NMR spectroscopy with respect to the mole ratios of the diastereomeric dipeptides. The stereoselectivity of all experiments was low. The number of experiments favoring the formation of L‐L (D‐D) sequences exceeded by far the number of those favoring L‐D (D‐L) sequences. Tripeptide syntheses, conducted under the reaction conditions of various dipeptide syntheses, revealed that the stereoselectivity is influenced by chiral neighboring groups. However, these “penultimate eff