Gnumeric Wildcards

["Schick, Michael H" <sac63425 saclink csus edu>]

Hi All, 
I'm transitioning from excel and trying to use functions like =countif($BA$2:$BA$36,"Fr*") to count all the 
freshmen in my class list, and I find that the asterisk, *, is not recognized.  If I replace "Fr*" with 
either "Freshman" or "freshman", I get the right count with a bit more typing.  

But I also want to count cells with entries such as "Undergraduate Degree - Business (Pre-Mis)" and 
"Undergraduate Degree - Business (Acct-Pre)" using =countif($AZ$2:$AZ$36,"*Bus*") so I still need something 
that functions like the asterisk.  Anyone know how?

Thanks,
Mike