Methods and apparatuses for reducing an amount of bandwidth required for feedback to a transmitter station in a closed-loop multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system are described herein. The methods may include initially measuring at a receiver station channel qualities associated with receiving signals from a transmitter station for a first and a second spatial channel, the transmitter and receiver stations employing a closed-loop MIMO system. The receiver station may then determine a first and a second channel quality indicator (CQI) based on the measured channel qualities and may then transmit to the transmitter station the first and the second CQI to directly and indirectly identify a first and a second modulation coding scheme (MCS) entry among a plurality of ordered MCS entries, respectively. The second MCS entry being one of a selected subset of lower ordered MCS entries relative to the first MCS entry. The transmitter station may selectively use the first and the second identified MCS to transmit signals to the receiver station over the first and the second spatial channel, respectively.