Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. A receiving device (e.g., a base station and/or a user equipment) may receive, over a control channel, a first control signal identifying first scheduling information for a data transmission to the receiving device. The receiving device may determine a number of resource elements of a shared channel for a second control signal based at least in part on a first modulation and coding scheme (MCS) table associated with the second control signal. The receiving device may receive, over the resource elements of the shared channel and based at least in part on the first control signal, the second control signal identifying second scheduling information for the data transmission. The receiving device may decode the second control signal based at least in part on the first MCS table.