2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/209648A weight ring in type A is the coordinate ring of the GIT quotient of the variety of flags in $\C^n$ modulo a twisted action of the maximal torus in $\SL(n,\C)$. We show that any weight ring in type A is generated by elements of degree strictly less than the Krull dimension, which is at worst $O(n^2)$. On the other hand, we show that the associated semigroup of Gelfand--Tsetlin patterns can have an essential generator of degree exponential in $n$.12 pages, 1 figure, v2: hyperref package options changed to suit non-pdf latexAlgebraic GeometryRepresentation Theory14P25 (Primary) 17B10, 52B11 (Secondary)text