Ana Pantoja-Alfaro, a graduating senior in the Brookewood School’s class of 2024, will be heading to Princeton University in the fall, where she plans to major in mathematics and minor in physics.
She is very excited to study those subjects at a university known for its world-class math and science programs. But what sealed the deal for her when choosing where to attend college is that to the best of her knowledge, Princeton is the only Ivy League university with a permanent Blessed Sacrament chapel.
There is also daily Mass there and every year, the school is represented at the March for Life in Washington, D.C. During her recent campus visit, members of the Catholic Student Center did a reading of the “The Jeweler’s Shop,” a play written in 1960 by Karol Wojtyla before he became Saint John Paul II.
“I knew I would have a community there,” she said.
A parishioner of St. Elizabeth Parish in Rockville, Pantoja-Alfaro has attended the all-girls K-12 Kensington Catholic school since the ninth grade. Her parents, Norberto and Alicia, are natives of Mexico City and moved first to Canada for her dad to attend graduate school in Kitchener, Ontario, where Ana was born.
The family came to the United States when her dad began working for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and they settled in Montgomery County. Her younger brother, Juan Diego, will be a freshman at DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville in the fall.
Pantoja-Alfaro, 17, said she remembers how friendly and inviting the Brookewood School community was during her first shadow visit there as an eighth grader. “It was not like any other school I shadowed at,” she said. “What stood out is how joyful everyone was…It was a very attractive place to be and way to live.” Fast forward to May 25, 2024, Pantoja-Alfaro will graduate with her Brookewood classmates, 18 girls she considers more than friends. “They are like sisters to me,” she said.
Looking back further on her years at Brookewood, she said the school’s emphasis on reading and literature, as well as introducing her to poetry were also important aspects of the school’s culture which she grew to love. Throughout all of high school, she ran cross country, but also played basketball for two years, and participates in Brazilian martial arts as a hobby. Brookewood is divided into four houses named for Maryland’s historical families, and Pantoja-Alfaro serves as captain of Arundel House.
For Pantoja-Alfaro, the decision to pursue studies in mathematics was not a difficult one because she loves the subject so much, but she also sees a parallel to another favorite scholarly pursuit – poetry. “It is impossible to love math without loving poetry too,” she said. “The proofs in math have such an elegance and beauty to them – it’s like poetry.”
Among her favorite classes were Catholic Church History, calculus, physics, and a philosophy course on the History of Thought. She credits Brookewood teacher Father Jose Medina for his ability to make any subject come alive for the high schoolers. During her junior year, she took five advanced placement (AP) classes and four in her senior year.
Although those AP classes proved to be very challenging, Pantoja-Alfaro said it was through her studies that her Catholic faith grew, as she humbly turned to God more and more to help her get through the difficult school work.
“I asked God for a lot of help. Studying for those classes was the most intense and beautiful time, and I just asked God to give me the desire, the strength and the concentration to study,” she said.
As her graduation day approaches, Ana Pantoja-Alfaro said she is thankful it will not be a final farewell to Brookewood and looks forward to returning for the annual events that draw alumnae back. Most of all, as she begins a new educational journey at Princeton, she said she looks forward to fulfilling her yearning to keep learning about the infinite wonders of God’s creations through her favorite subjects. “I want to keep studying forever if I could,” she said.
