David Hogg, a self-appointed spokesman for a generation, revealed on Tuesday that four universities he has applied to have rejected his application.
The Florida high school student, a survivor of the February 14 shooting in Parkland who recently helped organize the March For Our Lives, said four different campuses in the University of California school system have turned him down: UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and UC Irvine.
Hogg, 17, said fellow survivor Ryan Deitsch was also turned down by UCLA.
“It’s not been too great for me and some of the other members of the movement, like Ryan Deitsch,” he said, according to TMZ.
“It’s been kind of annoying having to deal with that and everything else that’s been going on but at this point, you know, we’re changing the world. We’re too busy. Right now it’s hard to focus on that,” he said.
Hogg, who holds a 4.2 grade point average, said he got the rejection letters two weeks ago.
“I am not surprised at all in all honesty. I think there’s a lot of amazing people that don’t get to college, not only that do things like I do but because their voices just aren’t heard in the tsunami of people that apply every year to colleges in such an economic impacted school system here which we have here in America where people have to go into massive amounts of debt just to go to college and get an education,” he said.
“I think it’s really sad but it’s the truth.”
Hogg said he had been accepted at Florida Atlantic University, Cal Poly and Cal State San Marcos.
“If colleges want to support us in that, great, if they don’t it doesn’t matter, we’re still going to change the world,” he said.