Wireless devices may employ techniques for indicating alternative modulation coding schemes (MCSs) (e.g., MCS values or MCS indices not associated with a default list or default MCS table). That is, communications (e.g., such as physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) transmissions carrying downlink control information (DCI), physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmissions carrying uplink grants, etc.) may include information (e.g., in MCS fields and reserved fields) that indicate alternative MCSs for subsequent communications. For example, random access radio network temporary identifier (RA-RNTI) scrambled DCI, random access response (RAR) messages, etc., may indicate an alternative MCS for subsequent messages in a random access procedure (e.g., for a RAR, an RRC connection request, etc.). The alternative MCS may be conveyed by indicating information such as MCS scaling factors, alternative MCS table IDs, MCS indices associated with the alternative MCS table, or some combination thereof.