Data stores date as text

The data I am trying to run Jet against stores the date as text. When I set a filter for dates "01/30/13..", I get dates like 12/15/12. Is there a way in Jet to convert from text to date in the filter? I can obviously return all the data, use datevalue() and figure it out that way but I really do not want to do that. Any ideas?

I've been playing with the filter "01/30/13..&*/13" to make sure I get all dates in 2013 but that does not seem like a permanent solution because I will have scenarios where I need to cross years.