The death of 12 Boston University students in just more than two years is a tragic occurrence that has prompted administrators to try to find similarities in the incidents’ causes, said President Robert Brown.

Though university administrators have speculated an increase in “risky behavior,” there is no clear correlation between any of the incidents, Brown said.

“Are we seeing an up tick in risky behavior?” he said in a March 2 interview. “But obviously, when you look at these cases, there is no obvious thing that pops out.”

Before two College of General Studies students — then-sophomore Andrew Voluck and then-freshman Molly Shattuck — were killed Feb. 9, 2005 when they were hit by a commuter rail near West Campus, no students had died in four years. But since that incident, 10 other students have died.

The two most recent students who died were Stephen Adelipour, 21, a School of Management senior, and Rhiannon McCuish, 21, a College of Arts and Sciences junior, who were killed in an off-campus Aberdeen Street apartment fire Feb. 24.

Brown said when any student dies, it is “very, very hard” for students to grieve.

“Each person has to make sense of it in their own way,” he said. “One of the things is we are in a community . . . that’s 30,000 people . . . . Actually, when you think about it from that context, to go a year without an accidental death is a blessing.”

The university, which offers counseling services through Marsh Chapel and Student Health Services, has accommodated grieving students after each death since 2005.

“I think that any young person who experiences the death of a peer, whether they knew them or not, is bound to feel some level of existential question within their own existence in mortality,” said Student Heath Services Director Dr. David McBride. “It is clearly more prominent [with students] who are acquainted with students who died.

“It is a lot of sadness to happen in a relatively short amount of time, and every individual is affected differently,” he continued.

Brown said he is proud of BU’s response to the fire — offering displaced students emergency housing — and he said the fire forced university officials to address fire safety and evacuation policies in buildings more closely.

“In the aftermath of something like this, you always look at the practices you have in your own buildings for emergencies like this,” he said.

BU spokesman Colin Riley said it is important to consider each death individually and to work directly with the victims’ families to discuss the situation.

“Each case is separate,” he said. “In some cases, we have had memorials in a quick succession . . . . One of the things is you try to give families control of the situation, let them know the options.”

Staff reporter Barbara Rodriguez contributed reporting to this article.