Swimmer who died ID'd as incoming Cornell student from Bronx

ITHACA, New York -- A young Bronx man who died while swimming in an upstate New York gorge has been identified as a Cornell University-bound freshman whose acceptance video went viral.

Ithaca Police say the body of Winston Perez-Ventura was recovered Saturday evening in the water near Falls Creek Drive in Ithaca. Police say he went missing five hours earlier.

He was in Ithaca participating with other incoming students in a pre-freshman summer program.

Perez-Ventura moved to the U.S. when he was 9 years old. Attending college was a dream his mother has had for him since he was little, when she moved to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic, leaving her son behind so she could establish a life.

Perez-Ventura planned to study architecture at Cornell, after his mom helped him build his dream.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)