Importing data from excel drop down menu into MATLAB

I have an excel drop down menu that refrences 8 cells in excel. I want to read/write the value shown in the drop down menu from MATLAB, I am using a COM server to inport the rest of the data, just normal numbers in cells, but the drop down menu has me stuck.

Example: the drop down menu shows "aluminum", I want to read "aluminum into matlab - or I have "bronze" and I want "bronze" to be the displayed value of the drop down menu. (bronze and aluminum are both already options in the excel drop down menu).

Thanks!

[Benjamin Salak]

Never mind I figured it out, just had to hunt down the location of the inputs in excel in VBA.