Vels Institute of Science, Technology, and Advanced Studies, popularly known as VISTAS, was founded in 1992. NAAC has awarded it with a 'A++' grade. It is certified by AICTE and UGC. VISTAS Chennai is ranked 55 out of 58 by IndiaToday for Mass Communication and 61 out of 125 by NIRF for Pharmacy in 2025.

VISTAS Chennai provides a total of ten full-time courses and four part-time courses, with seven UG courses, two MBA and pharmacy courses, and one PhD course at the doctoral level. The first-year fee for VISTAS Chennai's Pharma.D and B.P.T courses is INR 4.36 lakhs and INR 1.1 lakhs, respectively, whilst the first-year fee for VISTAS Chennai's flagship PhD course is between INR 35,000 and 75,000, depending on the specializations chosen.

Admission to VISTAS Chennai is both merit-based and entrance examination-based. While admission to courses like B.P.T., BCA, and BBA is merit-based, VISTAS Chennai Admissions to courses including MBA, B.Sc., and PhD require candidates to appear for entrance examinations such as VELS Entrance Examination (VEE), CAT, XAT, and More. Some courses require candidates to appear for an interview conducted by the VISTAS Chennai faculty.

Placement details of VISTAS Chennai for the academic year 2025 have not been released on their official website. As per the VISTAS Chennai NIRF 2025 report, the median VISTAS Chennai Placement package for the UG 3 Year Course is INR 410000, while for the UG 5 Year Course is INR 620000. Companies including Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant, HCLTech, Accenture, Amazon, Infosys, Wipro, Zoho, and Sutherland were among the top recruiters.