Regarding outside scholarships and UPenn, you can actually reduce your expected family contribution, to a point:
So if the work study is around $2K (not part of your EFC, usually a part of the offered package) and the student contribution is around $2K, you can knock those off with outside scholarships. Penn doesn’t package student loans so you can often take one to help pay your EFC if necessary.
You conclusion is flawed.
Need based aid at U Penn is based on the calculation Penn does using the information from your Profile form.
The info you have…and that of any other person are likely NOT the same.
You need to forget about your “friend” and understand Penn will use your family financials when the time comes…to compute your need based aid.
Bargain with them! I don’t think so.
Ignore my personal situation - think of it as a problem. What is the probability that someone with a higher income will have an EFC that is lower than mine - less than 10% and I am being way too generous. By focusing too much on what is theoretically possible (in minority of cases) I believe we are loosing the bigger picture. When someone says you can go back with evidence of admission to another school - forgive my language skills - is it not a kind of bargaining that is not rooted in any absolute principles. It is SIMILAR to flying - you never know how much the guy next to you paid 
It’s not similiar to flying. But believe what you what you want to believe.
As others above have stated…don’t count other people’s money. And don’t assume that all of what you are hearing about someone else’s finances are the full story either. Because they might not be.
If you’re a US citizen and your parents aren’t divorced, and they don’t own a business or a farm, the result of the NPC is the minimum you can expect to pay. Universities don’t negotiate. Negotiation implies you have some power in the exchange and the truth is that you have none. They do reconsider financial aid packages if a family’s financial aid picture changes drastically or if there’s info. not captured in the financial aid form, but the family appeals and the financial aid office either recalculates or they reject the appeal.
Before you can even contemplate comparing offers from UPenn and its peer schools, you have to clear the first hurdle – acceptance. Until you have multiple offers on the table, I wouldn’t worry about how to coax a better deal out of an Ivy or any other university. And I’d quit asking your friend about his finances. It’s really none of your business and won’t have any affect on the pakages you’re offered anyway.
Higher income with lower assets could explain the difference. Or # of kids, # in college, medical bills, debt…any number of things. (I just filled out the Profile and was surprised it did ask for credit card, auto loans and other consumer debt amount - so that may be school-by-school, or year by year as I don’t recall seeing it before).
Pretty much the only negotiation UPenn does is if financial circumstances changed - they might offer more if a parent is suddenly unemployed or someone dies or a $25K medical bill hit the family after the FA app. And if another ivy offers a better package they may match (Cornell does that, not sure about Penn).
Beyond that, the NPC is what will tell YOU how much YOUR FAMILY will be expected to pay.