If you're murdered in Rubin residence hall, you were killed off-campus.

You missed the cutoff by three blocks.

Because of the way NYU reports crime statistics, only three of NYU's 21 undergraduate dorms - 13 percent of the residence hall population - are technically classified as on-campus.

As a result, NYU's crime statistics are drastically skewed, with far more crimes categorized as occurring in 'non-campus' buildings than in 'campus residence halls' - even though the bulk of those crimes apparently occurred in residence halls - and making the university seem, at a glance, far safer than it actually is, a two-month WSN investigation revealed. The university's yearly crime report is nearly impossible to interpret correctly without careful study or prior knowledge of how those statistics are tabulated, WSN has found.

In response to WSN's inquiries, administrators say they will revise the yearly report to break down the numbers more clearly and consider redrawing NYU's campus boundaries.

Each year, NYU is required to publish crimes statistics under the federal Jeanne Clery Act, which forces colleges that receive federal funding to disclose crime data, such as criminal offenses, arrests and write-ups for substance abuse. Those numbers are broken up into four categories: campus, campus residence halls, non-campus buildings and public property.

But the law and guidelines on its enforcement set by the federal Department of Education are vague on where the campus ends. It says university's campuses should include buildings 'owned or controlled' by the university 'within the same reasonably contiguous geographic area.' The education department only checks universities' data and their definitions of campus when formal complaints are filed.

NYU provides a separate map to define its boundaries for crime data, which is different from the campus map posted around Washington Square Park and provided in the Public Safety office, which shows 14 of the 21 dorms. The tightly confined Clery map covers the buildings immediately around Washington Square Park, including many of NYU's largest classroom buildings. But of the residence halls, where the overwhelming majority of crimes occur, only Hayden, Goddard and Weinstein residence halls are included in the map.

As a result, NYU has an exceptional number of crimes in non-campus buildings, according to Department of Higher Education crime data between 2003 and 2006.

When substance abuse violations in only campus buildings are considered, NYU ranks 61st out of the largest 180 universities. But when campus and non-campus crimes are combined, NYU has the second-highest number of violations in the country.

Overall, NYU's non-campus statistics make up a fourth of all non-campus drug and alcohol incidents in the nation.

'It is important to note that one cannot really differentiate between on-campus and off-campus residence halls,' Director of Residential Education Tom Ellett said.

'From the standpoint of Res Ed, it is one system, whether the residence halls fall within the boundaries or outside it,' Ellett added. 'I don't think it is valid to portray it otherwise.'

As an urban university with buildings scattered throughout New York City, NYU faces a relatively unique challenge in how to define its campus, administrators and experts say.

'There are a lot of institutions that report properties that far away as non-campus properties,' said S. Daniel Carter, a Clery expert and the director of public policy at Security on Campus Inc. 'But they're generally like a single remote classroom facility or something like that, rather than necessarily the bulk of their residence halls.'

The real problem, he said, lies with the law, which does not account for NYU's situation. The solution would be for NYU to explain that most of its residences are non-campus buildings, he said, or to break down the non-campus data.

'Most people would look at the statistics and, not knowing the fine points of the Clery act, would probably assume that all the residential facilities were probably included in the student residential facilities column,' Carter said. 'And that's why I think it's important that there be a notation about what's what.'

The only place where NYU may not have complied with the law is that its annual report includes only a campus map, not a non-campus one, Carter said. Under the act, universities don't have to provide a map, but if they do, they must show all three areas included in its data - campus, non-campus and public property.

NYU spokesman John Beckman was not able to comment on the potential failure to comply with the law last night. But earlier in the day, he said he does not see any flaw in having multiple maps or the university's current campus boundaries. He said extending the boundaries 'makes no sense.'

'Different maps serve different purposes,' he said. 'One is an informational map to tell the members of the NYU community where facilities are. The other reflects what we consider to be the heart of our campus.'

Dennis Jay Kenney, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said that split is misleading.

'If I'm a parent, I'm going to take things like crime into consideration when I'm deciding where to send my kid to school,' Kenney said. 'It clearly sounds to me that they're trying to circumvent the reporting requirements.'

Kenney acknowledged that NYU is different than other traditional colleges. But 'I don't think that's a justification for bending the rules,' he added.

Until 2003, NYU broke down its non-campus data into residence halls and non-residence halls. The university will begin breaking down non-campus data that way again, Beckman said, several hours after WSN asked questions about how the data is broken down. It will also evaluate whether its campus boundaries are still appropriate with the university's growth, he said.

Director of Public Safety Jules Martin said NYU takes the report very seriously.

'Clery is a consumer document. It gives parents or students or prospective employees a document to review where they would like to study or like to work,' Martin said. 'The more information we have in that, the better they can assess NYU.'