Students at some Boston area colleges will not be answering the door for trick-or-treaters this Halloween.

A rumor circulating widely at Boston college (B.C.) and the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., holds that a serial killer is predicted to strike one of the two schools on October 31 of this year.

According to the rumor, three psychics on the Oprah Winfrey show in late September claimed to have found the predictions in the writings of the medieval mystic Nostradamus.

The psychics said Nostradamus predicted a series of brutal murders would take place in an L-shaped dorm at a New England college overlooking a body of water and a cemetery. The date of the predicted murders: October 31 of a reversible year such as 1991.

B.C. and Holy Cross both have dorms fitting Nostradamus's description, and some students at the school are making special plans for Halloween just in case, according to Allison B. Berry, a first-year student at B.C.

Although Berry said that most B.C. students are not taking the story too seriously, she added, "There are some anxious feelings about it." She said she has heard some students say they will sleep at home on Halloween.

However, Berry herself plans to defy fate by attending a friend's "massacre party" sleep-over in one of the potentially ill-fated L-shaped dorms.

Claire T. Ruppert, a first-year student at Holy Cross, said she thought the story was "far-fetched." But she added, "The more people talk, the more it mushrooms."

Some students said they feared the prophecy might be self-fulfilling. Berry said she worries that "some lunatic is going to hear this prediction and think it's his personal calling."

Administrators at the colleges said they are taking a slightly more skeptical approach to the prediction.

"It's Halloween nonsense," said Robert F. Capalbo, director of housing at Boston College.

Capalbo said that the rumor surfaces every four or five years. "I'm sure that Nostradamus had the power to predict Adolf Hitler, but he never had the foresight to see Boston College," Capalbo said.

"I think that everyone recognizes it for the farce that it is," he added.

Capalbo said a similar story is currently circulating at St. Mary's College in South Bend, Indiana. At St. Mary's, however, the murderer is predicted to come dressed as Little Bo Peep.

One of the most mysterious things about the rumor is how it began in the first place. The Heights, a B.C. student newspaper, said that producers of the Oprah Winfrey show insist that no such predictions have been made on their program.

The Heights claimed that a similar rumor is circulating at Harvard about a V-shaped "Radcliffe dorm."

Harvard College, which over-looks the Charles River and two cemeteries, also fits the description of the murder site. Both the old and new sections of Quincy House are L-shaped, and Lionel Hall attaches to Harvard Hall to form an L.