I’ve heard that many affirmative action schools make it harder for Asian-Americans to be admitted and I was wondering if that applies to UMN
Here is a Strib article describing the UMN’s admission policy. According to the Executive Director for Admissions, race is one factor in the admissions process but is within the affirmative action guidelines set by the Supreme Court.
Statistically, “Asian” represents about 9% of enrolled UMN undergraduates; higher than many other Big 10 state flagships (7% OSU/Purdue, 6% UW/PSU, 5% IU) but notably lower than UMich (14%) and UIUC (18%) (Source: College Navigator). The state of MN is about 4.4% “Asian”; the US about 5% - 5.3%, according to the US Census and estimates available on Wiki.
One can perform the same exercise for any other ethnic/racial group or male vs. female.
College-specific enrollment can be found here: https://www.oir.umn.edu/student/enrollment The TLDR is that Asians are less represented in CFANS, CDes and CSOM (compared to their university-wide representation), about the same for CSE/CLA, and over-represented (compared to university-wide) in CBS and CEHD. Whether this reflects specific affirmative action issues is unclear-to-doubtful since these entry colleges are all over the place in terms of selectivity. The disparity more likely underscores differing majors and interests.
Finally, UMN is a state university that looks at fairly objective criteria for admission. GPA/class rank, courseload, test scores, and probably state residency are going to have the largest impact your admission decision. Everything else will be secondary.