I hear ya and I downloaded the template finally LOL, and I don't have a clue, as to how to use the darn thing!  LOL  It opens up in my photoshop elements but then what do I do, I am lost LOL!  Any help would be appreciated!

I've looked at my GCU cards and the template very closely to figure out what happens.  To my way of thinking the template doesn't really reflect what GCU does with the image and I think they did the template that way to keep things as simple as possible.  For printing purposes the 5x7 image is actually enlarged and appears to be printed on a slightly larger card stock.  It looks to me like they then trim the card to exactly 5x7 to deal with the "full bleed" issue of printing right to the edge of the stock.  This is the best way to do it and they get a great product with the process.  If you open your card flat and look at how much of the image is printed past the fold you'll see just how much the image has been enlarged and then trimmed.  That dimension past the fold is very consistent from card to card.  It runs about 1/8th of an inch within 1/32nd of an inch on all my cards.  If you are a lunatic like me you can figure out just how large the printed image is (before trimming) by measuring from the center of the card to the edge of the print past the fold. Then if you get even crazier you can figure out where the trim line is.  You'll find the 1/4" is a little fat but very safe.  I went thru this exercise because I try to use the images elsewhere where they print much closer to the 5x7 size and trim much less and I don't want the borders getting too big.  But I think GCU's process gives a much better looking card.  Now if we can only convince them to let us put images on all for faces of the card like Zazzle ... GCU will have an amazing product!  I like doing all faces of the cards on Zazzle but I am much happier with the GCU finished card itself.  It's slightly heavier stock a little glossier ... AND ... it folds neatly, cleanly, and evenly.  Zazzle cards the front overlaps the back quite a bit and sometimes the finish edges aren't even parallel ... and it varies from card to card.  A little disappointing.  

Thanks Harry, I'm printing off your reply for referance.  Why I'm concerned is
my look is very bordered, and I want the customer to receive what they see
on the Thumbnail.  On site, if you follow the template you see this wide border,
looks great, when you receive the card, because of what you said in your reply,  
now you have a much narrower  border.  If one designs for a wide border the
the Thumbnail looks completely out of proportion???

I would like the printed card to look identical to the thumbnail, because that is what the customer will be EXPECTING.  We should be giving the customer EXACTLY what they want, or informing them that there may be a white border surrounding the card, in all fairness and in my humble opinion!
 
My question still stands, how do you use GCU's template.  Templates confuse the **** out of me LOL...what do I do with the template once I get it into Photoshop? Do I copy my image onto  the top of the GCU template..and then check the size?  geez I'm lost

Hiya Cara ... well I tried to make that argument about making sure the customers see what they are getting with a management team of another site.  And I think the issue was far worse than the difference between the thumb and the trimmed finished card here.  Sometimes it really is just a little difficult to get these sites doing everything as perfectly as we'd like them form a programming stand point.  Some places do it better than others.  I'm not going to argue that issue on here I learned my lesson.  I became very unpopular over there.  These sites simply have their limits and the thing we have to do as intelligent designers is know how to recognize them and work within or around them to make OUR products the best they can be.  Somtimes these limts can actually become opportunities.  Sometimes they become nice accidents that make our designs even more interesting.  One of my fav designs of mine actually made the limits of the print area on a T-shirt a feature of the design and ended up in me creating a number of my favorite designs.  .... No one is buying them but I still love them LOL

Well, I was using 2 different sizes for my cards here and one was 2450 x 1750 and the other was 2100 x 1500 (which is the size GCU recommended) I am wondering now if the cards that I made at 2450 x 1750 are probly too large.  But I haven't recieved any emails from GCU asking me to take them back down to 2100 x 1500 but I have taken them down to 2100 x 1500, recently.  
 
I am confused, but then again that is nothing new for me  
 
I also realize what you said Harry, about working within the guidelines and a agree 100% with you on that.  I know that what GCU can do they will do, and what might be a logistical nightmare might just have to wait.  I trust that they usually always grant a request if they can do it without any major problems.  I am very happy here!

Thanks Harry for your complement and your expertise.  But.....HELP........
HAVE I PRESSED A WRONG BUTTON AGAIN.........I'm getting many duplicate
e-mails from the forum!