Trucking school count towards "driving experience"?

I'm not new to the industry myself, of course. But I have a friend with less than a year under his belt, that I was trying to refer and get into my current company's "apprenticeship" program - for drivers with 6-12 months worth of experience. He says he's only got 4 months of OTR experience, but he was in school for 3 months, before attaining his cdl. Now, I couldn't tell you where I remember reading or hearing this, but I could swear I've heard somewhere before, that most companies will credit the time you spent behind the wheel in school, to your overall experience. I'm not sure if that would be by the letter of the law with the DOT, or if it's just a policy that some companies have to maybe cut some new drivers a little slack, and be able to "qualify" a few more otherwise less-experienced drivers. Anybody know anything specifically about this, that you may be able to shed a little light on? I would love to be able to tell my friend "hey guess what. You've actually got 7 months of experience, not 4!". But I would hate to get his hopes up, if I'm not exactly right about this.

 

Yup, that's what I'm already figuring on doing tomorrow. Not to say I haven't been amused with some of the replies on here