I wasn't sure if they only counted the gpa of the last 60 credit hours or the complete time you've been in college. I can't see a person going one year and failing and dropping out then 20 years later come back and get a 3.8gpa but have it brought down from a dumb mistake 20 years ago. Or just have a bad first freshman semester but changes everything.
Some schools explicitly look at the last 60 hours (e.g., SIU), but others informally notice trends. You might be able to glean some hints about how important trends are to a particular school by looking under "Selection Factors" for that school in the MSAR--some schools list grade trends as one of these factors.
