For Boston University, it has been an awful four months: The college has seen an undergraduate badly injured in a fire, the arrest of two hockey players on sexual assault charges, two episodes of what appeared to be extreme hazing, and a student practical joke gone so badly awry it drew international media attention.

Last week, in by far the most serious and troubling event, a graduate student was slain off campus.

But even as BU courts the 19,589 high school seniors it has admitted for next year - who must decide whether to attend by Tuesday - the university is not downplaying the bad news. In fact, president Robert Brown is making sure parents know about recent events.

“We want to make sure they’re getting the facts accurately,’’ Brown said Thursday in an interview, his first extensive comments on the string of incidents. “You know, I’m a scientist. The facts are what they are.’’

After Kanagala Seshadri Rao was found shot to death on an Allston street on April 19, Brown went so far as to write to all the parents of admitted students to tell them about the killing - even though they might otherwise never have heard about it. Such things do happen at large urban schools, he told them.

The university also faced an awkward dilemma the day after Rao’s slaying: 1,000 admitted students were descending on campus for open houses.

Kenn Elmore, the dean of students, stood in front of the groups and said hello. Then, like Brown, he brought up Rao’s death before anyone could ask about it.

“It would be unusual for us after such a terrible incident to not even acknowledge it,’’ Elmore said. “I wanted them to see that it does affect the community, to give them a sense of who we are.’’

Even BU’s website has prominently featured straightforward stories about every negative incident on campus this semester.

It is an approach that differs strikingly from crisis management tactics at many other universities.