The saddest thing about “Operation Varsity Blues,” the emerging college admissions scandal first revealed last week, is that 33 parents had so little confidence in their own children that they opted to make bribes and break the law to get them into elite colleges.

Maybe it was with some overpowering reason. In addition to being the victim of bad parenting, Lori Laughlin’s daughter couldn’t fill out her own application to the University of Southern California, according to court documents. So how could she possibly hope to break into that magic circle of 20,000 undergraduates at USC without a $500,000 boost from her errant parents?

A disclaimer: I took a winding path to college graduation that included a mediocre high school record, two subsequent years at an overnight job in a plastics factory, community college in blinding speed — 15 months, without a drink or a date — and two blissful years at a Catholic college where, under the guidance of the Jesuits, I redeemed myself academically. Or tried.

When it came to guiding my own four children, I knew every pitfall to avoid — because as a student I’d stepped into them myself. On top of that, I married a college admissions director. Here’s what we learned (and how we avoided paying bribes) with our own children:

• Nothing beats hard work. Our children’s hard work was rewarded; sloth discouraged. That started at home and continued through high school.
• Little things count. Not every child can master calculus. But every child can do the rote work to succeed in spelling and multiplication tables. Foster those good habits early; they can endure.
• Learning is fun. From the start, encourage your child’s individual strengths and scholarly interests. That means trips to science museums and art galleries and concert halls and theaters, even in the cheap seats.
• Character counts. So does unfailing kindness and steadfast loyalty to friends and family. Teach character, and everything else falls into place.

This was important, too: You can learn a lot at an affordable school. Studying at elite colleges is a privilege. So is studying at Lamar or the University of Houston or Sam Houston or Lamar State College Port Arthur, if a student is in a program that interests him or her and takes full advantage of what is offered. That means going to class, meeting with faculty, pursuing worthy extracurriculars, completing homework assignments, studying for exams. Our four graduated public colleges with good educations and little debt.

To read, case by case, about dishonest, rich parents and their perhaps dull children was painful. In some cases, the children were pretty good students who might have done fine somewhere other than at elite, pricy campus where they didn’t belong.

There were lots of losers in Operation Varsity Blues. There will be more. There were lots of lessons, too:

• The unworthy but admitted students themselves were cheated the moment they took part in these crimes — wittingly or unwittingly. Some took part in the myriad scams, knowing full well they were cheating their way in. Had they never been caught, they were still losers for acting unethically.
• The elite schools suffered tarnished reputations. That pricy sheepskin may be suspect in some people’s minds. That’s unfair to students, legitimately enrolled, who do the work.
• Legitimately enrolled students also suffer in this way: Much campus learning takes places in study groups, in small seminars, in shared conversations, in late night study halls. Adding an illegitimate student into the mix cheats worthy, dedicated students who can learn from others.

Here’s a life lesson parents and students might consider, too: Sometimes rejection is OK. I applied to one elite college; the rejection letter arrived in the same mail delivery as my financial aid package to college in Alabama. One door closed, one door opened.

At my second-choice college, I had a sublime academic experience. I experienced another part of the country. I pondered my faith. I studied under scholarly, pious men. I met my wife.

I dealt with the humility that comes when you learn that not every door will open to you, not everyone will welcome you. Sometimes, you have to make Plan B work. Sometimes, Plan B should have been Plan A.

 Ken Stickney is editor of The Port Arthur News.