Notating one rough semester GPA-wise My first semester of college was extremely rough GPA wise. I am an otherwise almost straight 4.0 student (up to -0.02), but my first semester of college I got a 3.46 because of both adjusting to a new  environment and an extraordinary amount of personal/familial issues that came up simultaneously (it really was an inordinate amount - I even got 4.0 during Covid-19).

Would it be wise to notate this separately on my CV/grad school application? If so, how would I do so? I don't see how to do it without making it look like an excuse and it would be taking up valuable space (although more of a problem on the CV than on the application).

To clarify, I understand that for most applicants, this would be ok. However, I am trying to get into extremely competitive programs (ex. CS@Stanford/Google), hence the concern.
I got a 3.46


In general, a 3.46 is reasonably good. Given your otherwise excellent performance, it is not necessary to make excuses or explain. In fact, I recommend not doing so, for two reasons:


Grades are only one part of your application. You are clearly a "check" in that box, so there is nothing to gain by dwelling on it. In fact, this is likely to come across unsympathetically ("I'm a millionaire, but listen to my explanation about why I'm not a billionaire....")
The explanations/excuses you would offer (transition, personal conflict) are not particularly compelling, and are largely aligned with what the reviewers would have assumed in the absence of any such explanation.