GMAT Strategy

Hi, I just recently graduated from Penn State at December.

I graduated a semester early and have been unemployed for the last 6 months. Since money was tight, I decided to take my CFA exam and find employment before I even consider trying to apply for a MBA. But after taking my first CFA exam, I realize I probably have enough time and would be in my best interest to start studying for my GMAT.

I had a couple of questions and was wondering if anybody would be able to help me. How hard is the GMAT? Is it a lot harder than the SAT?

I took the SAT total of 3 times. I was able to score 800's on all the SAT math and did pretty terrible by scoring between 600-680 for verbal. I was able to score a 800 on the SAT math level 2 as well. If I start studying for the GMAT now and plan to take it within a year or two, where should I start off? I haven't done any math besides using financial calculators and stats work in college because I was in a finance major. I also didn't take any math classes in college because I had enough AP credits for math. I know I have to brush up my math skills, but how much effort did other people who passed the exam before concentrate on the math part when they did well on the SAT math? And is a year, well actually more like 18 months if I want to take the exam 6 months after my 2nd CFA exam, enough time to prepare my self for the verbal section? As you can probably tell from what I wrote so far, I am pretty bad at grammar and such. I also write pretty lousy essays.

I graduated with 3.79 from Penn State by the way. Is that decent to get into Harvard or Wharton if I am able to get +700 on my GMAT and hopefully have over 2 years of work experience as well as pass all three of my CFA exams by then?

Thanks in advance for anyone that would like to help me out.

I just would like to get some advice on where I should start studying. I know I am weak at verbal than math. But I don't know which book to start from. I rather not take any real practice exams until 4-6 months before I take the test. So should I just start with Princeton review and Kapalan to brush up on basic skills and start reading over the OG(?) after I am done with those? Since time is not really an issue to me since I'm trying to pass my 2nd CFA exam, if I didn't pass this summer for the first exam I'm sure I'll pass it on December, and get 2 years of work experience before I take my first GMAT... What should I do? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Anyway... Since I'm pretty sloppy with summing up things... Below is my timeline for getting prepared for test to give you a better idea about my situation.

June 2009-> If I pass the CFA exam part 1, I need to start around July for the GMAT. If I didn't pass it, I'm hoping to still study for the GMAT while I study for my CFA until October. From October I need to focus on the CFA exam to hopefully pass it on December.

January 2010 -> Start studying for the CFA exam 2.
July 2010 -> Focus on GMAT to take the test on december.

I am planning to take the test only once. I am hoping that I am giving myself enough time to get over a 700 on the GMAT. I remember looking over the GMAT math section in my sophmore year in college and tried only doing the math problems for one of the practice tests my friend was studying for. I think I got 40+ that time. I'm not sure what I will get now, but is that a decent score?

Anyway... Sorry for repeating over and over again the things I already said.

Thanks.