Hence, while some PUCV buildings are on the historic palm-tree-lined Avenida Brasil, several of its schools are dispersed throughout Valparaíso, Viña del Mar, Quilpué and Quillota.

[1] The PUCV offers undergraduate degrees subjects including architecture, design, horticulture, industrial engineering, business, law, accounting and finance and Spanish.

The diversity of the PUCV is one of its strengths, with a rainbow trout farm near Los Andes, a legislative consultancy group (CEAL), a farm in Quillota with an area of 6 km2, a fruit packing house specialized in avocados and citrus fruits (joint venture with Exportadora Santa Cruz), a TV station, that has been on the air since 1957 (the first in the country), a radio station, a publishing house, and an experimental grade school and high school for boys in Viña del Mar.

Even older, the Law School was established in 1894 as an independent college by the Sacred Heart Fathers, and was later incorporated into the university (since both were units of the Roman Catholic Church).

The Pontifical title was conferred by Pope John Paul II and announced at the inauguration of the 2003 academic year by Zenon Grocholewski, Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education.

PUCV's Grand Chancellor is the Bishop of Valparaíso, who appoints representatives in the Academic Council but does not directly run the university (responsibility of a faculty-elected Rector).

The appointment of PUCV officers and structural changes in its administration need the approval of the Holy See, with periodic reviews by the Congregation for Catholic Education of the Roman Curia.